The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Howard Chang, M.D., Ph.D., early career scientist, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; professor of dermatology, Stanford University School of Medicine, member, Stanford Cancer Center and Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine

Speaker bio(s)

The central dogma of gene expression is that DNA is transcribed into messenger RNAs, which in turn serves as the template for protein synthesis. The discovery of extensive transcription of large RNA transcripts that do not function by coding for proteins, termed long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) provide an important new perspective on the centrality of RNA in gene regulation. Dr. Chang will discuss genome-scale strategies to discover and characterize lncRNAs. An emerging theme from multiple model systems is that lncRNAs form extensive networks of ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes with numerous chromatin regulators and target these enzymatic activities to appropriate locations in the genome. Consistent with this notion, lncRNAs can function as modular scaffolds to specify higher order organization in RNP complexes and in chromatin states. The importance of these modes of regulation is underscored by the newly recognized roles of long RNAs in developmental patterning and cancer.

Dr. Chang received a Ph.D. in biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 2000. He completed an internship in internal medicine at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose in 2001 and a residency in dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine in 2004. He was a postdoctoral research fellow in Patrick O. Brown's lab at Stanford School of Medicine from 2000 to 2004 and became associate professor at Stanford University in 2004. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2008 and full professor in 2011. Since 2004, Dr. Chang has been a member of the faculty in the Program in Epithelial Biology in Stanford's Cancer Biology Ph.D. program and a member of the Stanford Cancer Center and Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. In 2009, he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist.

Dr. Chang is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has received the Damon Runyon Scholar Award, the American Cancer Society Scholar Award, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine New Faculty Award, the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise and the Alfred Marchionini Research Prize.

Open to

Public

Host

Jim Darnell

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Robert Houghtaling(opens in new window)

Phone

(212) 327-8072(opens in new window)

Sponsor

Robert Houghtaling
(212) 327-8072(opens in new window)
rhoughtali@rockefeller.edu(opens in new window)