Dr Nick Owens

About me:

Nick Owens is a Senior Lecturer in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Exeter.

Nick received both an MEng in Computer Science and a PhD in biologically inspired algorithms/machine learning from the University of York. Nick moved to apply his background to biology for his first post-doctoral work at the Francis Crick Institute (formerly MRC National Institute for Medical Research) on gene regulation in early Xenopus development, he used computational methods to understand transcriptional dynamics at the zygotic genome activation. Following this, he undertook further computational biology post-doctoral work on gene regulation at Institut Pasteur, Paris. There he worked on how co-operative binding of transcription factors and chromatin states control cell fate and self-renewal in mouse embryonic stem cells.

In 2019, Nick moved to the University of Exeter to establish his group studying gene regulatory defects in disease.

Interests:

Nick is interested in how transcription factors bind cooperatively to regulate gene expression and how this depends on local chromatin features such as nucleosome positioning. Nick applies computational tools to understand how the sequence specifies transcription factor logic and local chromatin organisation. He uses these methods to gain mechanistic into sequence variants implicated in diabetes.

Qualifications:

• MEng, Computer Systems and Software Engineering, University of York
• PhD, University of York