AllerGen epigenetics researcher awarded a Canada Research Chair

AllerGen researcher Dr. Michael Kobor has been awarded a Canada Research Chair in Social Epigenetics.

Dr. Kobor is an associate professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at The University of British Columbia (UBC) and an expert in epigenetics—the relationship between genes and the environment.

His research team studies the mechanisms by which environmental exposures and life experiences can “get under the skin” to regulate the activity of genes, and contribute to health and disease throughout the life course of an individual. The research focuses on the epigenetic underpinnings of respiratory diseases, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and mental health trajectories.

Dr. Kobor also leads an AllerGen-funded project called Rapid Environmental Effects on Genes: the Lens of Epigenetics (REEGLE) that examines how environmental exposures in early life can affect the on-off setting of genes and influence the development of allergic diseases and asthma.

REEGLE aims to determine if exposure to common environmental allergens such as diesel exhaust, particulate matter and pollen affects the genes through DNA methylation patterns and to test for an association between such exposures and risk of allergic disease.

In DNA methylation, a specific chemical modification called a methyl group is added to the DNA backbone. If methylation occurs in a particular region of a gene, the gene function may be altered without affecting the underlying DNA.

“Any gene can have its activity regulated, in part by DNA methylation,” says Dr. Kobor. “DNA methylation acts like a dimmer control on a light switch that allows the light to be turned on and off, or dialled up and down.”

Dr. Kobor is one of 137 new and renewed Research Chairs across the country receiving $118 million of new funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).