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Pia Mach

@piamach

Postdoc in Bas van Steensel Lab, Netherlands Cancer Institute | previously PhD with Luca Giorgetti, Friedrich Miescher Institute Genome Architecture | Gene regulation | Live-cell imaging | Genomics

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19.11.2024
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Latest posts by Pia Mach @piamach

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Acute NIPBL depletion reveals in vivo dynamics of loop extrusion and its role in transcription activation - Nature Genetics Acute depletion of NIPBL reveals a class of chromatin loops that are independent of NIPBL for their maintenance but not their establishment and that NIPBL is necessary for the expression of lineage-de...

Very excited to share my postdoc research in the @jesserdixon.bsky.social lab at @salkinstitute.bsky.social, out online at @natgenet.nature.com today! www.nature.com/articles/s41... We investigated the function of the cohesin accessory protein NIPBL, making two particularly interesting findings:

16.02.2026 18:32 πŸ‘ 37 πŸ” 24 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

Interested in transcriptional regulation, enhancers and 3D genome folding?

In this new study we wondered about the role of cohesin loading at enhancers for long-range transcriptional control

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

detailed πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡

12.02.2026 21:39 πŸ‘ 67 πŸ” 33 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3
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Happy to share part of my postdoctoral work at the @lucas.farnunglab.com lab. Great collaboration with @voslab.org and @andersshansen.bsky.social. β€œStructural basis for CTCF-mediated chromatin organization” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

09.02.2026 15:22 πŸ‘ 30 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Very excited to share our new paper 🎊
A wonderful early birthday gift! πŸŽ‚πŸŽ
Huge thanks to everyone who contributed to making this possible.

16.12.2025 09:23 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Here is a copy of last year's Twitter thread explaining our preprint - jump to (21) for the new stuff πŸ‘€

Synergy between cis-regulatory elements can render cohesin dispensable for distal enhancer function

now revised and journal accepted at www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡

27.11.2025 21:58 πŸ‘ 89 πŸ” 45 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 3
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πŸ“£ Paper alert!

I am delighted that our paper exploring the impact of Neanderthal-derived variants on the activity of a disease-associated craniofacial enhancer has been published in Development today!
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

10.11.2025 11:11 πŸ‘ 123 πŸ” 49 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 6
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How can we organize current theoretical approaches for developmental biology - from information to dynamical systems & GRNs - into a common framework?

We propose to think along Marr's 3 levels: computational problem, algorithm, implementation

Check out our review:
arxiv.org/abs/2510.24536

10.11.2025 06:46 πŸ‘ 49 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2
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πŸ₯This Wednesday , in #FragileNucleosome seminar, we are excited to host @hannahlong.bsky.social and @jeffvierstra.bsky.social to tell us about amazing work they are doing!
πŸ—“οΈRegister here for upcoming session and the entire series:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

03.11.2025 12:03 πŸ‘ 20 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Characterization of induced cohesin loop extrusion trajectories in living cells Nature Genetics - This study introduces a system called TArgeted Cohesin Loader (TACL) that recruits cohesin complexes at defined genomic regions and induces loop extrusion events in living cells,...

The TArgeted Cohesin Loader (TACL) paper was just published. Happy that we were able to contribute to this really exciting project!

If you want to learn how targeting cohesin to defined loci in the genome affects the local chromatin environment and transcription, look no further!

rdcu.be/eLiT5

16.10.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 54 πŸ” 20 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Happy to share our latest publication, in which we show that the arrangement of nucleosomes around CTCF sites contributes to higher-order organisation of chromatin into TADs: www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

27.10.2025 11:49 πŸ‘ 71 πŸ” 31 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2

Out now! πŸŽ‰ Check the thread & preprint to see why we think E–P specificity is real in mammals β€” and, well, a few other interesting things popped up too πŸ‘€
Huge thanks to @danielibrahim.bsky.social, @arnaudkr.bsky.social & @stemundi.bsky.social and fantastic people in their labs β€” what a journey! πŸ§ͺπŸ”¬

17.10.2025 05:50 πŸ‘ 43 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Enhancer-promoter compatibility is mediated by the promoter-proximal region Gene promoters induce transcription in response to distal enhancers. How enhancers specifically activate their target promoter while bypassing other promoters remains unclear. Here, we find that the p...

What is a promoter? And how does it work?

We very happy to share our latest work trying to understand enhancer-promoter compatibility.
I am very excited about the results of @blanka-majchrzycka.bsky.social, which changed the way I think about promoters

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

16.10.2025 15:06 πŸ‘ 172 πŸ” 74 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 6
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Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene Genes are often activated by enhancers located at large genomic distances, and the importance of this positioning is poorly understood. By relocating promoter-reporter constructs into thousands of alt...

Our reporter hopping scaled up to thousands of integrations in a single locus, to produce high-resolution functional maps, with plenty of interesting insights: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

24.09.2025 08:56 πŸ‘ 34 πŸ” 11 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Really excited to share our latest work led by @mattiaubertini.bsky.social and @nesslfy.bsky.social: we report that cohesin loop extrusion creates rare but long-lived encounters between genomic sequences which underlie efficient enhancer-promoter communication.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
AπŸ§΅πŸ‘‡

24.09.2025 21:45 πŸ‘ 114 πŸ” 52 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 5

Have you ever wondered how the exact location of a gene affects it's activity?

The main story of my PhD deals with exactly that question, and is now published in Science! ✨
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

My amazing co-author and friend @mathiaseder.bsky.social summarized the highlights for you

19.09.2025 14:22 πŸ‘ 36 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2
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Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene Genes are often activated by enhancers located at large genomic distances, and the importance of this positioning is poorly understood. By relocating promoter-reporter constructs into thousands of alt...

✨Exciting news: the main story of my PhD is out in Science!

Together with Christine Moene @cmoene.bsky.social, we explored what happens when you scramble the genomeβ€”revealing how Sox2’s position shapes enhancer activation.

πŸ“– Read the full story here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

19.09.2025 14:09 πŸ‘ 94 πŸ” 37 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1

Very proud of our paper on "scrambling-by-hopping" LADs, which was just published: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Congrats to Lise Dauban and the rest of the team – this was a real tour-de-force!

02.09.2025 17:26 πŸ‘ 58 πŸ” 24 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This is not a HiC map! Ever wondered if multiple enhancers get activated simultaneously? We measured chromatin accessibility on thousands of molecules by nanopore to create genome-wide co-accessibility maps. Proud of @mathias-boulanger.bsky.social @kasitc.bsky.social Biology in the threadπŸ‘‡

18.08.2025 13:00 πŸ‘ 113 πŸ” 34 πŸ’¬ 10 πŸ“Œ 0
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NIPBL dosage shapes genome folding by tuning the rate of cohesin loop extrusion Cohesin loop extrusion is a major driver of chromosome folding, but how its dynamics are controlled to shape the genome remains elusive. Here we disentangle the contributions of the cohesin cofactors ...

New preprint with @gfudenberg.bsky.social

We find the rate of cohesin loop extrusion in cells is set by NIPBL dosage and tunes many aspects of chromosome folding.

This provides a molecular basis for NIPBL haploinsufficiency in humans. πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

16.08.2025 03:03 πŸ‘ 117 πŸ” 54 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 6
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Synthetic engineering demonstrates that synergy among enhancers involves an increase in transcriptionally productive enhancer-gene contacts Enhancers are non-coding cis-regulatory elements that control the expression of distally located genes in a tissue- and time-specific manner. Recent studies indicate that enhancers can differ in their...

Excited to share the latest work from the lab led by @eharo84.bsky.social, in which we have used synthetic biology to explore the mechanisms by which different types of long-range enhancers ensure robust and precise developmental gene expression

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

11.08.2025 14:56 πŸ‘ 66 πŸ” 37 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 2
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We found a new asymmetry in the large-scale chromosome structure: sister chromatids are systematically shifted by hundreds of kb in the 5β€²β†’3β€² direction of their inherited strands! The work was led by Flavia Corsi, in close collaboration with the Daniel Gerlich lab.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/

15.07.2025 08:11 πŸ‘ 115 πŸ” 59 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 7

Calling all aspiring Postdocs! One extra week to apply to join our exciting HFSP-funded project to uncover how chromatin moves to function.

Deadline July 15th.

www.mdc-berlin.de/career/jobs/...

08.07.2025 09:12 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 16 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Friedrich Miescher Institute, open position Friedrich Miescher Institute, open position

We are looking for a research assistant to join our lab and support ongoing projects with genome engineering in mouse embryonic stem cells! Please get in touch if you are interested.
www.fmi.ch/education-ca...

26.06.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 19 πŸ” 22 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Wissenschaftliche*r Mitarbeiter*in/ Postdoc (m/f/d) Chromatin ist nicht unbeweglich. Es handelt sich um ein hochdynamisches Material, dessen 3D-Struktur zentrale genomische Prozesse – von der Transkription bis zur DNA-Reparatur – steuert. Doch wie verhΓ€lt sich Chromatin als Material – als FlΓΌssigkeit, Feststoff oder viskoelastisches Gel –, um diese Funktionen in lebenden Zellen auszufΓΌhren? Ohne eine Antwort auf diese Frage kΓΆnnen wir nicht vollstΓ€ndig verstehen, wie Chromatin bei Krankheiten gestΓΆrt wird.

Postdoc🚨!

Come join our HFSP team to uncover how chromatin moves in cells and what this means for genome function! Great opportunity to combine single-cell genomics, live imaging and polymer physics in the unique mammalian retina with @andersshansen.bsky.social, Davide Michieletto & Sandra Tenreiro

20.06.2025 07:58 πŸ‘ 29 πŸ” 26 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 4

Very happy to share the peer-reviewed version of our paper in which we study the formation and function of pair-wise and multi-way enhancer-promoter interactions in gene regulation (see thread below): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

13.05.2025 09:41 πŸ‘ 103 πŸ” 32 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 3
Rules of Engagement
Rules of Engagement YouTube video by Johan Gibcus

Earnshaw, Goloborodko, Dekker & Mirny labs are excited to present our latest work, "Rules of engagement for condensins and cohesins guide mitotic chromosome formation" - now accepted!!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A short clip describing the key results:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmvO...

11.04.2025 07:45 πŸ‘ 98 πŸ” 53 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 6
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DNA-guided transcription factor interactions extend human gene regulatory code - Nature A large-scale analysis of DNA-bound transcription factors (TFs) shows how the presence of DNA markedly affects the landscape of TF interactions, and identifies composite motifs that are recognized by ...

A tour de force study from Taipale&Yin labs. It expands the vocabulary of the Regulatory Code by adding 1131 TF:TF composite motifs that are different from the individual TF motifs. The new composite motifs are enriched in cell-type specific elements and active in vivo
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

09.04.2025 16:51 πŸ‘ 98 πŸ” 43 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Happy to share the latest story from @arnaudkr.bsky.social's lab @embl.org! With @guidobarzaghi.bsky.social, we used Single Molecule Footprinting to quantify how often chromatin is accessible at enhancers after TF and chromatin environment changes! Check our preprint bit.ly/3XQMFxN + thread ⬇️ 1/11

08.04.2025 13:51 πŸ‘ 78 πŸ” 33 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 2
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The importance of moving away from bulk! Occupancy of Pol II at promoters is dramatically different between fly and mouse cells! When looking single molecule! Proud of the team! @kasitc.bsky.social @molinalab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s443...

02.04.2025 08:47 πŸ‘ 115 πŸ” 37 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Celebrating 10 years of our lab with a new preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
How does enhancer location within a TAD control transcriptional bursts from a cognate promoter?
Experiments by Jana TΓΌnnermann and modelling by Gregory Roth

29.03.2025 12:45 πŸ‘ 149 πŸ” 58 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 2