Emery Bresnick and Team of UW-Madison Scientists Identify Key Genes in Blood Cell Development

A study that was published online this week by Molecular Cell  was the work of an interdisciplinary team of UW-Madison Scientists, building largely off the work of MCP Faculty Member Dr. Emery Bresnick. The Bresnick lab has previously shown that GATA-2, a protein that binds DNA to modulate gene transcription, plays an important role in hematopoiesis. Dr. Sunduz Keles, professor of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at Wisconsin, used this information to identify regions of DNA similar to the GATA-2 binding site. These genes were then edited using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, and the team observed which sites, when altered, corresponded to changes in blood cell development. Read the full story at the UW SMPH News Site.