Jessa Lab

We are a computational biology lab studying gene regulation in development, disease, and therapeutic applications.

We study how gene regulatory programs are established during development, how they are disrupted in disease, and how they can be engineered for therapeutics.

The lesser-known view of the Waddington epigenetic landscape, with pegs and wires (genes and regulatory interactions) that shape the cell fate landscape. A snapped write represents a disrupted interaction, and a new wire represents a therapeutic intervention.

We study how gene regulatory programs are established during development, how they are disrupted in disease, and how they can be engineered for therapeutics.
We combine functional genomics, multi-modal data analysis, and interpretable machine learning approaches that let us crack open black box models of gene regulation to extract mechanistic insights.

Our interpretation of an interpretable machine learning model, with internal mechanisms exposed.

We combine functional genomics, multi-modal data analysis, and interpretable machine learning approaches that let us crack open black box models of gene regulation to extract mechanistic insights.

News

Jul 28, 2026

Selin joins the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute as an Investigator! The Jessa Lab is preparing to launch on September 1st, 2026. Stay tuned for site updates for more details on our vision and values.