Efraim Racker

Barbara Meyer is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. Research in the Meyer Lab addresses basic aspects of chromosome dynamics and developmental biology: how chromosomes fold and align to achieve proper segregation; how gene expression is coordinately regulated across the entire X chromosome; how choices are made between alternative cell fates; how regulatory gene hierarchies specify sexual fate. Their studies of X-chromosome-wide gene expression through the process of dosage compensation have revealed a mechanistic link between higher-order chromatin structure and chromosome segregation during meiosis and mitosis. These studies have led to an analysis of chromosome structure and crossover control during meiosis and macromolecular structures called kinetochores that attach and move chromosomes within the spindle during chromosome segregation.