Micromanaging cell growth and differentiation
Judy Lieberman, Harvard Medical School
| When |
16 Dec, 2009
from
11:00 am to 12:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Where | Auditorium |
| Add event to your calendar |
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Title: Micromanaging cell growth and differentiation
Speaker: Judy Lieberman
Affiliation: Immune Disease Institute and Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Children’s Hospital Boston, Dept of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Host: Paula Alves, Animal Cell Technology Unit
Abstract
RNA interference (RNAi) is a highly specific gene silencing phenomenon, which occurs in all cells. Its discovery ten years ago has revolutionized our understanding of how gene expression is regulated and has also provided a potent tool for scientific research and drug discovery. RNAi uses small pieces of double-stranded RNA of about 22 bases in length (called microRNAs or miRNAs) to inhibit the expression of genes containing complementary sequences. Some miRNAs act as master regulators of the decisions that a cell makes in the course of normal development or in response to environmental cues. In this talk Dr.
Lieberman will discuss two miRNAs that act as tumor suppressor genes – let-7, which controls “stemness”, and miR-24, which controls cell proliferation and the response to DNA damage. let-7 suppresses the expression of two oncogenes, /RAS/ and /HMGA2/, and miR-24 inhibits two key transcription factors, /E2F2/ and /MYC/.
Judy Lieberman, MD, PhD
Senior Investigator, Immune Disease Institute and Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School.
