Singh Narendra Pratap

I am interested in understanding the role of transcription factors and gene regulatory networks in the determination of cellular identity using Hox genes as a paradigm. During my Ph.D., I uncovered specific roles of cis-regulatory elements in chromatin organization and the expression of Hox genes to determine body patterning in Drosophila. In my Postdoctoral research, I used cross-species functional analysis to find how paralogous genes undergo functional diversification while also retaining the ancestral function during vertebrate evolution. In the future, I want to understand deeper how sequence divergence in transcription factor paralogs lead to functional and phenotypic novelties during evolution.