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Transcriptional Regulation and Oncogenesis

Program Leader: Arnold B. Rabson, M.D.

Overall Goals: to elucidate fundamental mechanisms of gene expression, identify their alterations in malignant cells and understand the consequences of the alteration for biology of cancer.

Specific Goals:

  • To elucidate the basic mechanisms controlling the initiative and elongation of gene transcription and to understand the mechanism and roles of epigenetic modifications that control gene expression to normal and malignant cells.
  • To characterize the mechanisms by which specific transcriptional regulators exert effects on the transcriptional machinery and nuclear chromatin to regulate gene expression and to identify and characterize altered functions of transcriptional regulatory molecules in cancer.
  • To understand the biological effects of transcriptional regulatory pathways to normal development and differentiation and how alterations of these pathways contribute to the malignant phenotype.

    • Fulfillment of these goals will lead to a better understanding of the role and function of altered transcriptional regulation in the biology of cancer and will allow translation to research problems related to cancer development and progression, including the development of new model systems and approaches to cancer diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention.