Federal Grant Award Summary

The University of Southern California received a $589,500 Project Grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), effective May 1, 2026 through January 31, 2031. Dr. Li's laboratory will conduct computational research to interrogate epigenetic regulation in cellular plasticity and heterogeneity, addressing critical gaps in understanding how epigenetic modifications and chromatin organization influence transcriptional regulatory programs and cell fate determination. The project focuses on developing advanced computational tools to comprehensively assess allele-specific and functional epigenetic heterogeneity across the complete genome, including previously unmapped genomic regions, and aims to complete epigenetic annotation of the mouse genome using recently released telomere-to-telomere reference sequences.

The research combines advanced genome technologies and computational biology methodologies to dissect the functional roles of epigenetic regulators in mediating 5-methylcytosine (5MC) plasticity and heterogeneity. This work addresses significant research challenges in understanding how changes in the epigenome and chromatin organization can alter transcriptional regulatory programs and cell differentiation status. The project will generate computational tools, analytical methodologies, and genomic annotation resources that advance fundamental understanding of epigenetic regulation mechanisms underlying cell fate determination processes.