Victoria Meller

Victoria Meller is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Wayne State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on epigenetic regulation of gene expression, particularly dosage compensation mechanisms in Drosophila and mammals. She leads a lab investigating non-coding RNAs (e.g., roX RNAs) and their roles in chromatin modification.

Education: Ph.D. in Biology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1990).

Research Interests: Genetics, epigenetics, gene regulation, and the functional roles of long/short non-coding RNAs in chromatin-based regulatory systems. Current projects explore regulatory networks underlying X chromosome modifications and the convergence of dosage compensation mechanisms between flies and mammals.

Key Findings: Demonstrated redundancy of roX1/roX2 RNAs in Drosophila dosage compensation, identified roles for siRNA in X chromosome recognition, and discovered parallels between Drosophila and mammalian X-inactivation pathways.

Awards: AAAS Fellow (2019), NIH and NSF grants, including NIH RO1 GM093110 and NSF 0641121.

Teaching: Courses include Genetics (BIO3070), Eukaryotic Gene Structure (BIO7510), and Responsible Conduct of Research (BIO6700).

Lab Activities: Active research on satellite repeats, chromatin architecture, and RNA-dependent regulatory pathways. Collaborations include genomic studies on mosquito X chromosome regulation and heterochromatin dynamics.