Modeling the 3D Conformation of Genomes

This book provides a timely summary of physical modeling approaches applied to biological datasets that describe conformational properties of chromosomes in the cell nucleus. Chapters explain how to convert raw experimental data into 3D conformations, and how to use models to better understand biophysical mechanisms that control chromosome conformation. The coverage ranges from introductory chapters to modeling aspects related to polymer physics, and data-driven models for genomic domains, the entire human genome, epigenome folding, chromosome structure and dynamics, and predicting 3D genome structure.

Guido Tiana, PhD, is Associate Professor of Theoretical Biophysics at the University of Milano. He obtained the PhD at the Niels Bohr Institute (Copenhagen) in 2000 and since then has worked on the physics of complex systems of biological interest, such as proteins, DNA, RNA, chromosomes and genetic networks. The methods come from the realm of statistical mechanics, making heavy use of computational tools and some experimental work.

Luca Giorgetti, PhD, is a group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel. He obtained his PhD at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) and University of Milan followed by a postdoctoral training at the Curie Institute in Paris. He is an expert in combining physical modeling and experimental research in chromosome conformation and transcriptional regulation.