Song Tan, Ph.D.

Research

Gene regulation is fundamental to the proper functioning of a cell, and many cancers can be traced to abnormal gene regulation. Our goal is to understand how genes are regulated by combining genetic, biochemical and structural descriptions. Our expectation is that such information will contribute to the development of future therapeutic agents against cancer and other human diseases. We are particularly interested in dissecting the molecular mechanisms of transcription on a chromatin template to understand how genes are turned off and on. To do so, we perform biochemical studies of chromatin enzymes and we use X-ray crystallography to determine their three-dimensional structures. The questions that we wish to address include: how chromatin enzymes and transcription factors recognize nucleosomes and, how coactivators enhance transcription by recruiting the TBP general transcription factor to the promoter.