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Kathrin Muegge | |
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| Alma mater | Hannover Medical School (MD) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Molecular biology, epigenetics, cancer research |
| Institutions | Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research |
Kathrin Muegge is a German physician and molecular biologist researching chromatin organization during embryonic development and in tumor progression. She is a senior investigator and head of the epigenetics section at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.
Kathrin Muegge obtained a M.D. degree at the Hannover Medical School. As a postdoctoral researcher, she worked on cytokines and T cell development in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Laboratory of Molecular Immunoregulation of Joost J. Oppenheim and Scott K. Durum. [1]
As a principal investigator at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research she investigates in the Laboratory of Cancer Prevention chromatin organization during embryonic development and in tumor progression. [1] She is a senior investigator in the mouse cancer genetics program and head of the epigenetics section.
Muegge studies molecular mechanisms that alter chromatin structure and function during murine development. She discovered several links between chromatin modifiers, including nucleosomal remodeling and DNA methylation. The work focuses on chromatin changes during normal cellular differentiation and during the reverse process of nuclear reprogramming. Her studies provide insights how stable gene expression is achieved, how cells maintain a proper phenotype, and how this process may be disturbed in pathologic conditions including cancer. [1]
Cellular differentiation is the process in which a stem cell changes from one type to a differentiated one. Usually, the cell changes to a more specialized type. Differentiation happens multiple times during the development of a multicellular organism as it changes from a simple zygote to a complex system of tissues and cell types. Differentiation continues in adulthood as adult stem cells divide and create fully differentiated daughter cells during tissue repair and during normal cell turnover. Some differentiation occurs in response to antigen exposure. Differentiation dramatically changes a cell's size, shape, membrane potential, metabolic activity, and responsiveness to signals. These changes are largely due to highly controlled modifications in gene expression and are the study of epigenetics. With a few exceptions, cellular differentiation almost never involves a change in the DNA sequence itself. However, metabolic composition does get altered quite dramatically where stem cells are characterized by abundant metabolites with highly unsaturated structures whose levels decrease upon differentiation. Thus, different cells can have very different physical characteristics despite having the same genome.
Histone methylation is a process by which methyl groups are transferred to amino acids of histone proteins that make up nucleosomes, which the DNA double helix wraps around to form chromosomes. Methylation of histones can either increase or decrease transcription of genes, depending on which amino acids in the histones are methylated, and how many methyl groups are attached. Methylation events that weaken chemical attractions between histone tails and DNA increase transcription because they enable the DNA to uncoil from nucleosomes so that transcription factor proteins and RNA polymerase can access the DNA. This process is critical for the regulation of gene expression that allows different cells to express different genes.
Chromatin remodeling is the dynamic modification of chromatin architecture to allow access of condensed genomic DNA to the regulatory transcription machinery proteins, and thereby control gene expression. Such remodeling is principally carried out by 1) covalent histone modifications by specific enzymes, e.g., histone acetyltransferases (HATs), deacetylases, methyltransferases, and kinases, and 2) ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling complexes which either move, eject or restructure nucleosomes. Besides actively regulating gene expression, dynamic remodeling of chromatin imparts an epigenetic regulatory role in several key biological processes, egg cells DNA replication and repair; apoptosis; chromosome segregation as well as development and pluripotency. Aberrations in chromatin remodeling proteins are found to be associated with human diseases, including cancer. Targeting chromatin remodeling pathways is currently evolving as a major therapeutic strategy in the treatment of several cancers.
Lymphoid-specific helicase (Lsh) is a member of the SNF2 helicase family of chromatin remodeling proteins that in humans is encoded by the HELLS gene.
Edith Heard is a British-French researcher in epigenetics and since January 2019 has been the Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is also Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair of Epigenetics and Cellular Memory. From 2010 to 2018, Heard was the Director of the Genetics and Developmental Biology department at the Curie Institute (Paris), France. Heard is noted for her studies of X-chromosome-inactivation.
Dame Amanda Gay Fisher is a British cell biologist and Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) London Institute of Medical Sciences at the Hammersmith Hospital campus of Imperial College London, where she is also a Professor leading the Institute of Clinical Sciences. She has made contributions to multiple areas of cell biology, including determining the function of several genes in HIV and describing the importance of a gene's location within the cell nucleus.
Peregrin also known as bromodomain and PHD finger-containing protein 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the BRPF1 gene located on 3p26-p25. Peregrin is a multivalent chromatin regulator that recognizes different epigenetic marks and activates three histone acetyltransferases. BRPF1 contains two PHD fingers, one bromodomain and one chromo/Tudor-related Pro-Trp-Trp-Pro (PWWP) domain.
The Centre for Genomic Regulation is a biomedical and genomics research centre based on Barcelona. Most of its facilities and laboratories are located in the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park, in front of Somorrostro beach.
Sanjeev Anant Galande is an Indian cell biologist, epigeneticist, academic, former Chair of Biology and the Dean of Research and Development at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune He heads the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. He is the founder of the Centre of Excellence in Epigenetics at IISER Pune and is known for his studies on higher-order chromatin architecture and how it influences spatiotemporal changes in gene expression. He is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2010, for his contributions to biological sciences.
Thomas Jenuwein is a German scientist working in the fields of epigenetics, chromatin biology, gene regulation and genome function.
Bradley E. Bernstein is a biologist and Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and the Director of the Broad Institute's Gene Regulation Observatory. He is known for contributions to the fields of epigenetics and cancer biology.
Mitzi Kuroda is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. She was an HHMI Investigator at Brigham and Women's Hospital from 1993 to 2007. She has identified many genes and enzymes involved in epigenetic regulation in the fruit fly. In addition, her research has shown the importance of epigenetics in cancer. Her laboratory has identified chromatin remodeling signals and processes that predispose cells to be transformed into cancer cells.
Asifa Akhtar is a Pakistani biologist who has made significant contributions to the field of chromosome regulation. She is Senior Group Leader and Director of the Department of Chromatin Regulation at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics. Akhtar was awarded EMBO membership in 2013. She became the first international and female Vice President of the Max Planck Society's Biology and Medicine Section in July 2020.
Moshe Yaniv, born in 1938 in Hadera, Israel, is a French-Israeli molecular biologist who has studied the structure and functions of oncogenic DNA viruses as well as the general mechanisms for regulating gene expression in higher organisms and their deregulation during tumor pathologies and development. He is a member of the French Academy of sciences and Professor Emeritus at the Institut Pasteur.
Esta Sterneck is an Austrian molecular biologist researching the functions of the C/EBPδ][CEBPD transcription factor as tumor suppressor as well as tumor promoter in breast epithelial cells and cells of the tumor microenvironment. She is a senior investigator and head of the molecular mechanisms in development section at the National Cancer Institute.
Yamini Dalal is an Indian American biochemist specialized in chromatin structure and epigenetic mechanisms. She is a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute.
Li Yang is an American biologist researching how inflammation in the premetastatic environment modifies cancer cell colonization. She is a senior investigator and head of the tumor microenvironment section at the National Cancer Institute.
Carol Jeanne Thiele is an American microbiologist and cancer researcher specialized in the development of novel therapeutic strategies for pediatric tumors. She is chief of the cell and molecular biology section at the National Cancer Institute. She is a founding editor of the journal Cell Death & Differentiation.
Giovanna Tosato is an Italian–American physician-scientist and cancer researcher investigating the endothelium, angiogenesis, and the hematopoietic stem cell niche. She heads the molecular and cell biology section in the laboratory of cellular oncology at the National Cancer Institute in the United States. Tosato was a division director in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research from 1992 to 1999.
Claudia M. Palena is an American-Argentine immunologist and cancer researcher. She is head of the immunoregulation section at the National Cancer Institute. Palena researches tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy.
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