Email

vishnu.dileep@bcm.edu

Positions

Assistant Professor, CPRIT Scholar

Huffington Center on Aging
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston

Assistant Professor

Department of Molecular and Human Genetics
Baylor Colleg of Medicine

Member

Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Baylor College of Medicine

Education

PhD from Florida State University

Tallahassee, Florida United States

Cell and Molecular Biology

Postdoctoral Training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, Massachusetts United States

Professional Statement

The brain comprises several specialized cell types, some of which, like neurons and oligodendrocytes, can live for decades or as long as the organism itself. This longevity brings the challenge of maintaining their genomic and epigenomic integrity to preserve cellular function. Our lab investigates the organization of the genome and epigenome in brain cells, focusing on the molecular changes that drive brain aging and neurodegeneration.

Our goal is to understand how alterations in the genetic material and its regulation at the molecular level contribute to functional changes in brain aging and age-related neurological diseases at cellular and organismal scales. To achieve this, we investigate the genome from the linear sequence level to the large-scale 3D architecture of the genome, including enhancer-promoter interactions that regulate gene expression. Within this framework, our immediate focus is on how DNA damage accumulation in aging and neurological diseases disrupts genome organization and integrity. By establishing cause-effect relationships in these processes, we aim to uncover new therapeutic targets to mitigate or reverse brain aging and age-related neurological diseases.

Websites

Selected Publications

• Meharena HS, Marco A, Dileep V, Lockshin ER, Akatsu GY, Mullahoo J, Watson LA, Ko T, Guerin LN, Abdurrob F, Rengarajan S, Papanastasiou M, Jaffe JD, Tsai LH "Down-syndrome-induced senescence disrupts the nuclear architecture of neural progenitors.." Cell Stem Cell. 2022; Pubmed PMID: 34995493
• Marco A, Meharena HS, Dileep V, Raju RM, Davila-Velderrain J, Zhang AL, Adaikkan C, Young JZ, Gao F, Kellis M, Tsai LH "Mapping the epigenomic and transcriptomic interplay during memory formation and recall in the hippocampal engram ensemble." Nat Neurosci.. 2020; Pubmed PMID: 33020654
• Dileep V†* Boix CA*, Mathys H, Marco A, Welch GM, Meharena HS, Loon A, Jeloka R, Peng Z, Bennett DA, Kellis M†, Tsai LH† "Neuronal DNA double-strand breaks lead to chromosomal structural variations and 3D genome disruption in neurodegeneration.." Cell. 2023; Pubmed PMID: 37774679
• Dileep V, Gilbert DM "Single-cell replication profiling to measure stochastic variation in mammalian replication timing." Nat Commun.. 2018; Pubmed PMID: 29382831