Emil Marklund

In my research I am deciphering the molecular mechanisms of life. I am especially interested in how biological macromolecules manage to bind to each other strongly, and with high specificity, so that some pairs of molecules interact with each other while others don't. One important example of such an interaction is sequence specific binding of proteins to DNA, which is essential for regulating gene expression in all life forms. Somehow a DNA binding protein manages to find and bind the correct DNA site by sucessfully discriminating it from the millions of other possible sites in the genome of the cell. To unravel how this is possible we are measuring protein binding and unbinding at grand scale to many DNA sequence mutants simultaneously, and we then use this data to build and test quantitative models of the interaction. My hope and goal is that we will one day be able to understand these processes in precise, mechanistic and quantitative detail. When we do so, this will most likely have deep implications on how we understand cellular regulation, different physiological states, and disease.