Ramin Shiekhattar, PhD, The Wistar Institute

The Shiekhattar laboratory is pursuing research in two major areas. The first is the molecular mechanism of cancer. A number of human familial cancer syndromes are caused by the inheritance of a mutant allele of a tumor suppressor gene. These genes are involved in regulating cell growth, and they contribute to carcinogenesis when mutated or lost. Thus, individuals who carry only one functional copy of a given tumor suppressor gene are predisposed to cancer, since a second mutation in the same gene will render them lacking an important negative growth regulator. The second major research area is the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. The laboratory's goal is to understand the epigenetic regulation of gene expression in mammalian development and genetic disease. Histone modifying enzymes are a crucial component of the epigenetic control of gene activity through the regulation of chromatin state. Shiekhattar's laboratory has identified a number of factors such as chromatin remodeling complexes and histone-deacetylases that are involved in this process.