Dr. Valerie Reinke

Biography

Valerie Reinke attended the University of Illinois, receiving her B.S. in Genetics in 1990. She pursued graduate work at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas, in the laboratory of Gigi Lozano, studying mechanisms of tumor suppression by the p53 factor, and received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 1996. Following her doctoral studies, Valerie performed postdoctoral work at Stanford University in California, under Stuart Kim, focusing on genomic studies of the model organism, the nematode C. elegans. She developed an interest in the role of gene expression in regulating C. elegans germline development. In 2000, she joined the faculty of the Department of Genetics at Yale School of Medicine, where she continues to apply genome-wide technologies to understand gene regulatory mechanisms in the germ line. Valerie's research addresses fundamental questions about the influence of genome organization on epigenetic information and how this relationship contributes to tissue-specific gene expression across generations. Her lab is particularly interested in the dynamics of chromatin and its influence on gene expression during early embryogenesis, with implications for understanding human disease related to stem cell dysregulations and infertility.

Research Interests