Takashi Onikubo, Ph.D.

Takashi Onikubo is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Roeder at the Rockefeller University. He received his Ph.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he joined the laboratory of Dr. David Shechter to study how post-translational modifications alter the function of a histone chaperone during Xenopus laevis development. Prior to his graduate studies, Onikubo received his B.A. from Hunter College/CUNY.

His scientific interest is in chromatin and how its structure/topology is modified during biological events (e.g., gene transcription) and in disease. For his postdoctoral studies, he is combining biochemical and cell-based analyses to study enhancer-promoter interactions during transcription. In particular, he is focusing on the role of the cohesin protein complex in the topological linking of distal enhancers to cognate promoters and the associated recruitment of the mediator coactivator complex to the enhancer and translocation to its cognate promoter for the assembly/activation of the RNA polymerase II complex.