Genome Integrity Discussion Group April 2015

Speakers

Organizers

Scott Keeney, PhD

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Susan Smith, PhD

NYU Langone Medical Center

Lorraine Symington, PhD

Columbia University Medical Center

Sonya Dougal, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Jef Boeke, PhD

NYU Langone Medical Center

Jef Boeke received his Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from Bowdoin College and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Rockefeller University, where he worked on the genetics of filamentous phage assembly with Peter Model and Norton Zinder. He did his postdoctoral work at MIT/Whitehead Institute on yeast genetics with Gerald Fink. He served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1986–2014, where he also found the High Throughput Biology Center. He is currently directing the new Institute for Systems Genetics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Jef Boeke elucidated one of the major forms of DNA movement (transposition) in yeast cells, in which Ty1 elements move via reverse transcription of RNA. He coined the term retrotransposition to describe the process. His genetic and biochemical studies helped elucidate intricate molecular mechanisms involved in retrotransposition in eukaryotic cells. Retrotransposition formed about half of all human DNA and has been a major force in genome evolution. The Boeke laboratory has also constructed highly active synthetic retrotransposons as a probe of retrotransposition in cells and mice. Finally, Jef Boeke is leading an international team to synthesize an engineered version of the yeast genome called Sc2.0, the first synthetic eukaryotic genome.

Mike Glickman, MD

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Michael Glickman MD is a Member in the Immunology Program of Sloan Kettering Institute and an Attending Physician on the Infectious Diseases Service of Memorial Hospital. Dr. Glickman studies mycobacterial DNA repair and mutagenesis with the goal of understanding the role of these pathways in mycobacterial pathogenesis and antimicrobial resistance.

Eric Greene, PhD

Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Greene began as an Assistant Professor at Columbia University in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in 2004. In 2009 Dr. Greene was appointed as an Early Career Scientist with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and he was promoted to Associate Professor at Columbia the following year. Dr. Greene conducted postdoctoral research at the NIH in the laboratory of Dr. Kiyoshi Mizuuchi from 1999-2003, and he received his PhD in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University while working for Dr. Dorothy Shippen. Dr. Greene’s laboratory has pioneered novel technologies for studying protein DNA interactions at the single molecule level. This work relies on total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy to visualize proteins as they interact with their corresponding DNA substrates. These DNA substrates are anchored and aligned on a lipid bilayer-coated surface along the leading edges of nanofabricated metallic barriers within a microfluidic sample chamber. This substrate configuration allows us to directly visualize one the order of 100 to 1000 individual DNA molecules within a single field of view, along with any fluorescently tagged proteins bound to the DNA. This technology was developed specifically as a flexible experimental platform adaptable to the study of a wide range of protein nucleic-acid interactions.

Evgeny Nudler, PhD

NYU Langone Medical Center

Evgeny Nudler is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Julie Wilson Anderson Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, New York University School of Medicine, where he has been on the faculty since 1997. He received his PhD from the Institute of Molecular Genetics, Moscow Russia, in 1995. Research in Nudler’s laboratory explores a wide range of topics on gene regulation and stress response in prokaryotic and eukaryotic species. The most recent studies from his laboratory revealed new mechanisms of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, novel roles of RNA polymerase and associated factors in genomic stability, and new factors that control cellular responses to heat and other proteotoxic damage in human cells. Honors for his research include the Searle Scholar Award, NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, NYAS Blavatnik Award, Vilcek Foundation Prize, Robertson Foundation Award and others.