Leftover retroviral sequences make up 8% of the human genome in the form of endogenous proviruses and Long Terminal Repeat retrotransposons. Some of these ancient sequences have been observed to become active due to specific environmental stimuli, including the development of cancer and the start of early human development. I am interested in understanding which of these Human Endogenous Retroviral (HERV) sequences are expressed during embryonic development and evaluating the mechanism behind this expression. This will help to characterize the role that transposable elements play in influencing human development.
