Anesthesiology

Kevin Czaplinsky  Post-transcriptional control of gene expression in the nervous system

 

 

 

Neurobiology

Howard Sirotkin Genetic and epigenetic regulation of neural gene expression.
Our research seeks to explore the mechanisms that control cell type specific transcription in both the developing and mature vertebrate nervous system. The transcriptional repressor REST (RE1 Silencing Transcription factor) interacts with an ~23 bp DNA element (RE1 site) that is associated with >1000 target genes.  The majority of these genes have neural restricted expression. REST serves as a scaffold to assemble multiple chromatin modifying complexes that repress transcription.  Because of the powerful genetic tools available, we employ zebrafish as a model to study the long-term consequences of altering REST levels on gene expression and the long-range influences of specific RE1 sites on neighboring genes.

Pathology
Scott Powers Cancer Genomics: Drivers, Evolution, Therapeutics
Our research involves direct genomic analysis of human tumors to identify genes that undergo mutations, copy number alterations, or epigenetic alterations, with the goal of finding drivers of cancer progression that can serve as therapeutic targets.    We’ve used both “single-gene” approaches to functionally validate drivers, as well as more systematic approaches involving cross-species comparisons and pooled screening.  We pioneered the approach of using pooled coding-sequence expression vectors to screen for drivers from regions identified by genomic analysis of human cancers.  Here at Stony Brook we’ve begun to model large multigenic copy number alterations in experimental systems to study their oncogenic properties and therapeutic vulnerabilities.  We’ve also begun collaborations to understand the evolutionary dynamics of cancer development and treatment resistance using single-cell methodologies.