Department of Genetics

The Department of Genetics is a basic science department located in the George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building at the world-renowned University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in the heart of the Texas Medical Center. The focus is on advancing knowledge of the molecular genetic mechanisms that regulate normal and abnormal cellular processes. Research grant support totals approximately 10 million dollars in annual direct costs. Areas of research emphasis within the department include the identification of disease loci, the use of genetic systems to identify critical steps in development, differentiation, cell proliferation, cell death, DNA repair, and chromosome maintenance and segregation. These are important processes for cell and tissue maintenance that are often altered in cancer cells. The knowledge gained in our pursuit of basic mechanisms of cellular processes is shared with our clinical colleagues as we strive toward Making Cancer History^®.

The department has 150 staff members comprised of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, instructors, non-tenure track faculty, professional research staff and administrative staff. There is a strong commitment to graduate and postgraduate education and training. The faculty members are primarily affiliated with the Genes & Development and the Human and Molecular Genetics Ph.D. Programs of Study within the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston. Training is enhanced by the John H. Blaffer Lecture Series, a weekly departmental seminar series called the Information Exchange, a weekly Research Forum for student and postdoc research presentations, and the Genes and Development Annual Retreat. An NIH T32 training grant, Molecular Genetics of Cancer (CA009299), is in its 33rd year of funding, supporting four pre-doctoral students and five postdoctoral fellows.

The Center for Genetics and Genomics is one of seven centers within the Institute for Basic Science at MD Anderson, facilitating synergy in genetics and genomics research. The Center is administered through the Department of Genetics.

Highlights

Survival of p53 mutant mice. – Lozano Lab
Whole mount fluorescent image of dissected gonad from C. elegans, showing germ cells with nuclei (green) and plasma membranes (red) at different stages of development. – Arur Lab
Optical projection tomography image of mouse oviduct and uterus epithelia 12 days after birth. 3-dimensional structure of the uterine glands is revealed. – Behringer Lab
Histological section of mouse skin 4 days after birth, immunofluorescent staining for Keratin 1 (red), β4-integrin (green), and DNA (blue). – Gladden Lab
Mouse model of Wilms tumor. Control mouse kidney (left), Wt1 mutant kidney with tumor (right). – Huff Lab
Histological section of human breast tissue showing DEAR1 protein localized to normal epithelial duct (wavy structure) but much less in DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ; round structures). - Killary Lab
Immunohistochemical analysis of muscle biopsy from myotonic dystrophy type 2 patient, showing atrophic fibers positive for myosin heavy chain (brown), identifying them as fast twitch fibers. – Krahe Lab
A line of UV laser-induced DNA damage leads to recruitment of gamma-H2AX (green) and Fanconi anemia group D2 (red) proteins in human osteosarcoma cells. – Legerski Lab
Expression of REST (brown) in primary human medulloblastoma. – Majumder Lab
Frozen section of newborn testes stained for β-galactosidase (blue) from an Sf1 gene trap mouse. Sf1 directs β-galactosidase expression in the spermatogonial stem cells. – Matin Lab
Circular visualization (Circos) plot of a human breast cancer genome. – Navin Lab
C. elegans cell in prophase stained for DNA (blue), and antibodies for the spindle (green) and phosphorylated TLK-1 kinase (red). phospho-TLK-1 localizes to the holocentric kinetochore "stripes" surrounding each condensing chromosome. – Schumacher Lab