Professor Dr Eileen E.M. Furlong

Research Priorities: Genetics, developmental biology, genomics, gene regulation, cell development
Eileen Furlong is an Irish geneticist and developmental biologist with a particular interest in genome regulation within the complex three-dimensional cell nucleus, and how that regulates embryonic development. Her work focuses on investigating the control elements, known as enhancers, that regulate the start of gene expression. Furlong has developed innovative methods to decipher how enhancers’ function and how they regulate tissue development. This foundational research constitutes a significant contribution to understanding the biological pathways that lead from genetic variants to disease.
The developmental biologist investigates fundamental biological questions which have been asked for hundreds of years – where does our complexity come from? A nerve cell, muscle cell and skin cell differ greatly from one another although all cells in an organism have the same DNA and a common origin – the fertilised egg cell. Variety (or diversification) only occurs during embryonic development during differentiation in which some genes are activated and others deactivated, which is regulated by enhancers. Cells grow into their final functions in this way.
The process of turning genes on and off is of key significance to practically all biological processes, as errors can lead to numerous diseases. Gene expression is regulated by control elements known as enhancers. While the human genome contains approximately 28,000 genes, it also contains an estimated one million enhancers that control the different aspects or stages of gene expression, informing genes when and where they should be expressed.
Eileen Furlong’s group investigates the fundamental processes by which enhancers regulate specific genes – the correct ones, and not other genes nearby as this could lead to defects in an embryo’s development. The scientists delve into the question of how all of the many enhancers work together to bring about such variety of cells, and how transcription programmes control the differentiation process. Our DNA is folded like a ball of wool to fit into the small space of a cell’s nucleus. All of this regulation by enhancers and gene expression has to work within this compact environment, and Eileen Furlong’s work has shed light on how this occurs.
Eileen Furlong’s team has delivered pioneering work in the field of genome regulation by developing, combining and optimising interdisciplinary state-of-the-art methods. In addition to traditional approaches to genetics, the group uses innovative techniques such as single cell genomics, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, optogenetics, and deep learning (Artificial Intelligence) to research how the developmental programme is controlled within an organism. The group is particularly interested in the development of heart and muscle cells.
Eileen Furlong’s work has revealed many foundational principles of how the genome is folded and regulated during embryogenesis, and how enhancers work together in large complex networks to control embryonic development. Her research has both served to advance foundational research in biology as well as to facilitate new insights into understanding how genetic mutations can lead to multiple diseases.