Dietrich M. Egli, PhD

Dieter Egli obtained his PhD degree from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He joined the New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute as a Research Fellow in 2008. He is now Associate Professor of Developmental Cell Biology at Columbia University, with appointments at the Department of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative.

Dr. Egli’s group studies genome stability in early development, differentiation, and reprogramming. Our studies revealed that difficult-to-replicate sites in the genome frequently result in DNA breaks, genetic change, and developmental failure early in human development. In differentiated cells and during reprogramming, these same sites are also fragile, and thereby promote cell cycle exit and terminal differentiation, and inhibit reprogramming to a stem cell like state. In addition to detrimental genetic change, DNA damage during cell cycle progression can have physiologically meaningful outcomes in generating novel genetic variants during early development, and mediating cell cycle exit during differentiation. Exploring the role of fragile sites in these different contexts is a primary aim of our studies. We are using early mammalian embryos, stem cell-based models of metabolic disorders, and genome engineering for these studies.