Tag Archives: institute

Research reveals cancer-suppressing protein ‘multitasks’

More than half of human cancers carry defects in the gene for p53, and almost all other cancers, with a normal p53 gene, carry other defects that somehow impair the function of the p53 protein. Inherited mutations in the p53 gene put people at a very high risk of developing a range of cancers. The p53 protein’s functions are normally stimulated by potentially cancer-causing events, such as DNA damage from ultraviolet radiation (a cause of skin cancer), or the over-activity of cancer-causing genes. Ms Liz Valente, Dr Ana Janic and Professor Andreas Strasser from the Molecular Genetics of Cancer division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have been dissecting the processes that are controlled by p53, to discover how this protein can suppress cancer development…

Mapping the embryonic epigenome: How genes are turned on and off during early human development

After an egg has been fertilized, it divides repeatedly to give rise to every cell in the human body — from the patrolling immune cell to the pulsing neuron. Each functionally distinct generation of cells subsequently differentiates itself from its predecessors in the developing embryo by expressing only a selection of its full complement of genes, while actively suppressing others…

Potential therapeutic target for Cushing’s disease

The protein, called TR4 (testicular orphan nuclear receptor 4), is one of the human body’s 48 nuclear receptors, a class of proteins found in cells that are responsible for sensing hormones and, in response, regulating the expression of specific genes. Using a genome scan, the Salk team discovered that TR4 regulates a gene that produces adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which is overproduced by pituitary tumors in Cushing’s disease (CD). …