Stowers News

Stowers Investigator will update cancer researchers on the consequences of DNA enhancer failure at the upcoming AACR meeting

KANSAS CITY, MO—Stowers Institute Investigator, Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D., will take center stage at a Meet-the-Expert Session at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) being held April 5th-9th in San Diego. The AACR meeting is the most important international forum for sharing breakthroughs in cancer research. This year’s event could attract over 17,000 participants from 60 different countries.

KANSAS CITY, MO—Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have glimpsed two proteins working together inside living cells to facilitate communication between the cell's nucleus and its exterior compartment, the cytoplasm. The research provides new clues into how a crucial protein that is found in organisms from yeast to humans does its work.

Application of global sequencing technology reveals how an activator of gene expression stays focused

KANSAS CITY, MO—At a glance, DNA is a rather simple sequence of A, G, C, T bases, but once it is packaged by histone proteins into an amalgam called chromatin, a more complex picture emerges. Histones, which come in four subtypes—H2A, H2B, H3, and H4—can either coil DNA into inaccessible silent regions or untwist it to allow gene expression. To further complicate things, small chemical flags, such as methyl groups, affect whether histones silence or activate genes.

Studies in fish and cultured human cells provide insight into a human disease

KANSAS CITY, MO—Children born with developmental disorders called cohesinopathies can suffer severe consequences, including intellectual disabilities, limb shortening, craniofacial anomalies, and slowed growth. Researchers know which mutations underlie some cohesinopathies, but have developed little understanding of the downstream signals that are disrupted in these conditions.