JHU Biomedical Engineering Primary Faculty

Winston Timp, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

The Timp Lab
Clark 118A
(410) 417-8467
wtimp@bme.jhu.edu
http://www.timplab.com/

Education

PhD, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007)
MS. Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2005)
BS, Biochemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana (2002)
BS, Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana (2002)
BS, Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana (2002)
BS, Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana (2001)

Research Interests

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in phenotype through a mechanism other than genetic sequence — e.g., DNA cytosine methylation, histone post-translational modifications, nucleosome positioning, and chromatin organization. Epigenetic signatures differ between somatic cells and stem cells, between different tissue types, and are dysregulated in cancer. The epigenetic state has a strong effect on how genes are regulated, but the mechanism for this regulation is still being explored.

The Timp Lab is focused on two areas: parsing the biophysical mechanisms of epigenetics on a single molecule basis and dissecting how epigenetics effects and is affected by signal transduction on a single cell basis via control of the cellular microenvironment. These two areas of research are synergistic; single molecule research is a bottom-up approach informing new targets to explore via FISH or immunofluorescence, or new signal pathways. The single cell approach will reveal new epigenetic patterns, which we can then explore using the single molecule toolset.

Selected Publications

McDonald, O. G., H. Wu, W. Timp, A. Doi, and A. P. Feinberg. 2011. Genome-scale epigenetic reprogramming during epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 18 (8):867–74.

Hansen, K. D., W. Timp, H. C. Bravo, S. Sabunciyan, B. Langmead, O. G. McDonald, B. Wen, H. Wu, Y. Liu, D. Diep, E. Briem, K. Zhang, R. A. Irizarry, and A. P. Feinberg. 2011. Increased methylation variation in epigenetic domains across cancer types. Nature Genetics 43 (8):768–75.

Timp, W., U. M. Mirsaidov, Deqiang Wang, J. Comer, A. Aksimentiev, and G. Timp. 2010. Nanopore Sequencing: Electrical Measurements of the Code of Life. Nanotechnology, IEEE Transactions on 9 (3):281–294.

Mirsaidov, U., W. Timp, X. Zou, V. Dimitrov, K. Schulten, A. P. Feinberg, and G. Timp. 2009. Nanoelectromechanics of Methylated DNA in a Synthetic Nanopore. Biophysical Journal 96 (4):L32–L34.

Publications Search

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