Member Biography

My research over the past 20 years has focused on the mechanisms of Hox gene regulation by the mixed lineage leukemia protein, MLL, transcriptional deregulation by MLL fusion proteins, and the role of Hox genes in hematopoiesis and leukemia. Working with Dr. Stanley Korsmeyer, I contributed to the discovery that wild type MLL regulates HOX genes. As an independent investigator my laboratory discovered that MLL is a histone methyltransferase and that rearranged forms of MLL deregulate HOX and MEIS1 expression, which is crucial for leukemogenesis. Working with Dr. Matthew Meyerson we discovered that MLL interacts with the tumor suppressor menin. We also determined that MLL interacts with the polymerase-associated factor PAF and that MLL fusion proteins recruit a complex including the DOT1 methyltransferase. The MLL-menin, MLL-PAF interactions and DOT1 are all required for MLL mediated leukemogenesis. Current work in my laboratory is focused on developing small molecule inhibitors of these mechanisms and on defining the mechanisms of transformation by Hox proteins, which are deregulated in more than half of all myeloid acute leukemias.

M.H.S.A. - The University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI 2012

Ph.D. - The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 1989

M.D. - The Johns Hopkines University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 1989