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| Name |
Bloom, Kerry S. |
| Location
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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Primary Field
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Genetics |
| Secondary Field
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Cellular and Developmental Biology |
 Election Citation
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Kerry S. Bloom's research and imaging of chromatin structure elucidates physical properties of chromosomal territories, including the centromere and nucleolus.
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Research Interests
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Dr. Bloom has a long-standing interest in chromatin structure. He used nucleases to probe chromatin organization and studied the structure of active genes and centromeres. Dr. Bloom was an early developer of live cell microscopy and analysis of fluorescent protein fusions in budding yeast. He discovered a nuclear migration defect in dynein mutants that opened up the field for studying the mitotic exit checkpoint and genetic requirements for nuclear migration and spindle orientation in yeast and multicellular organisms. Turning back to the centromere, the visualization of centromere DNA dynamics challenged prevailing models of how cohesion holds sister centromeres together. Using bead-spring polymer models of chromosomes he discovered that the centromere is organized into a bottlebrush, in which the bulk of DNA is in radial loops, displaced from the primary axial core. The axial core is where tension is focused, and lies between kinetochore microtubules. They are currently using high spatiotemporal imaging of chromatin in vivo together with mathematical modeling to elucidate physical properties that underlie the formation and fluctuations of chromosomal territories, including the centromere and nucleolus. Introduction of tethers, cross-linkers and loop extrusion functionalities into the models sequester sub-domains and account for experimental observations.
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