Research in the Radhakrishnan lab focuses on the molecular mechanisms of eukaryotic transcription regulation with emphasis on how transcription factors engage with DNA, recruit specific coactivators and corepressors via intrinsically disordered transactivation or transrepression domains and how multi-protein coactivator/corepressor-bearing chromatin-modifying complexes assemble and engage with chromatin. We are asking these questions in the context of (i) nuclear receptors that use atypical mechanisms to effect transcriptional activation and (ii) a cohort of related, yet functionally distinct, histone deacetylase (HDAC)-associated chromatin-modifying complexes that fundamentally impact on cellular physiology in eukaryotes.