Elizabeth M. Duncan

A.B., Dartmouth College
Regulated Histone H3 Proteolysis during Mouse Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation
presented by C. David Allis

Elizabeth Duncan came to Rockefeller from Dartmouth College, where she graduated with honors (cum laude) in English and flirted with a possible career in medicine. However, after becoming hooked on research, Beth expressed an interest in studying chromatin biology and epigenetics in the context of mammalian development. While today marks a formal end to Beth’s remarkable doctoral studies, it also marks a new beginning on what I am sure will be an even more successful postdoctoral journey. Ends and new beginnings also summarize Beth’s remarkable research findings as she investigated the behavior of histone proteins during defined pathways of mouse embryonic stem cell differentiation. Beth determined that an oddly migrating band was in fact a “clipped” histone, pointing us and the chromatin field to a novel mechanism: proteolytical clipping of histones as a means to generate new ends that, in turn, alter a cell’s epigenetic landscape as it differentiates. Beth then made the gutsy decision to purify the enzymatic activity responsible for generating the clipped histone end, and convincingly showed that it was an enzyme not linked to histone metabolism before. Succeeding in the cold room seemed to come as easily to Beth as breaking her personal bests in New York and Boston marathons. If “Just Do It” ever applied to a graduate student, Beth would be high on the list.

Lest you worry about Beth’s mental health, she is well balanced. I attribute this, at least in part, to her daily morning jogs, which I came to realize Beth uses to clear her head, and often to think about her experiments, and more recently, her family. Beth is the real “OCTA-MOM” (eight copies of histones per nucleosome). I have no doubt that Beth will go on to run many more races and to do many more wonderful things, both inside and outside of science. The only real questions with Beth are how far and how fast will she go. The answers I keep getting are very far and very fast.