Congratulations to Dr. Ken Zaret, IRM Director, for being elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Ken Zaret, PhD, is the Joseph Leidy Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Perelman School of Medicine, Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and a member of the Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program. Dr. Zaret’s laboratory investigates the ways that genes are regulated in order to allow one type of cell to change into another type of cell in embryonic development, tissue regeneration, and human disease. Dr. Zaret discovered how certain gene regulatory proteins, which he called pioneer factors, can bind to silent genes in compacted chromosomal domains and enable their activation. The basis for silent gene targeting by pioneer factors has been found to underlie embryonic differentiation, cell reprogramming, and diverse human cancers.
Read the National Academy of Sciences press release here and learn more about the Zaret Lab here.