Ana Pombo

Ana Pombo developed genome architecture mapping (GAM), an innovative ligation-free method for measuring chromatin contacts in single cells that overcomes limitations of Hi-C by capturing three-way and higher-order chromatin interactions in intact nuclei. Her approach has revealed that many genomic loci engage in simultaneous multi-way contacts that are invisible to pairwise methods, with implications for understanding enhancer hubs and super-enhancer function in cancer. She has combined GAM with single-cell approaches to characterize cell-to-cell variability in 3D genome organization within tumors. Her work on nuclear body-associated gene regulation has illuminated how subnuclear compartmentalization influences cancer gene expression programs.