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Michael Eisen is interested in short snippets of non-coding DNA – so-called transcriptional “enhancers” – that regulate gene expression in animal genomes. Using Drosophila as a model organism, Eisen and his team combine evolutionary and computational genomics, high-resolution imaging, genome engineering, and classical biochemistry and genetics to study the greater than 1,000 enhancers active during early fly embryogenesis. The team’s current focus is understanding how enhancers and the proteins that bind to them interact in three dimensions in the nucleus to regulate transcription.