Dr. Bayly Wheeler is thrilled to join the Rhodes College Biology Department and the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program. Originally from Chicago, Dr. Wheeler received her bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It was there that Dr. Wheeler realized her two true (scientific) loves, molecular biology and genetics. Set on a research career in human genetics, Dr. Wheeler joined the Duke University Program in Genetics and Genomics where she accidentally fell in love with yeast and their utility as a scientific model system. Dr. Wheeler used yeast to understand how genetically identical cells establish and maintain different patterns of gene expression - a complicated problem that has implications for development in higher eukaryotes. During a brief hiatus from the awesome power of yeast genetics, Dr. Wheeler conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley using the nematode C. elegans. In C. elegans, as in humans, each sex has a different number of X chromosomes; male worms have one X chromosome and hermaphrodite worms have two. Dr. Wheeler's research explored how organisms cope with this X-chromosome imbalance between the sexes. At Rhodes, Dr. Wheeler is looking forward to establishing a research program that uses genetic and genomic techniques to explore how cells maintain patterns of gene expression despite the molecular upheaval that occurs during cell division.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Crane E, Bian Q, McCord RP, Lajoie BR, Wheeler BS, Ralston EJ, Uzawa S, Dekker J, Meyer BJ (2015). Condensin-Driven Remodelling of X Chromosome Topology During Dosage Compensation. Nature 523:240-244.
Wheeler BS (2013). Small RNAs, big impact: small RNA pathways in transposon control and their effect on the host stress response. Chromosome Res 21:587–600.
Wheeler BS, Ruderman BT, Willard HF, Scott KC (2012). Uncoupling of genomic and epigenetic signals in the maintenance and inheritance of heterochromatin domains in fission yeast. 2012. Genetics 190(2):549-557
Wheeler BS, Blau JA, Willard HF, Scott KC (2009). The impact of local genome sequence on defining heterochromatin domains. PLoS Genet 5:e1000453
Raetzman LT, Wheeler BS, Ross SA, Thomas PQ, Camper SA (2006). Persistent expression of notch2 delays gonadotrope differentiation. Mol Endocrinol 20:2898-2908
Education
Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics, Duke University, Durham, NC
