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Gene Structure and Expression

Example of gene structure in UVA's Gene Structure and Expression lab.Within the past decade, there has been remarkable progress in our understanding of the structure of genes, the mechanism of their expression, and the identification of factors regulating this expression in response to environmental or developmental signals.  An understanding of gene regulation is vital for understanding the control of normal cell proliferation and differentiation, as well as the molecular basis of deregulated cell growth that occurs in many human diseases including cancer.

This knowledge is obtained both by direct biochemical analysis of the protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions that are essential for gene regulation and by genetic studies, which can reveal the functional relationships of those cellular factors that control the expression of a gene and thus complement the biochemical approaches. Both bacterial and eukaryotic cell systems(including yeast, plants, invertebrates and vertebrates) are providing both general and specific information about gene expression.

Faculty in this Area:

David Auble

Auble, David T.

Molecular Mechanisms of Transcriptional Regulation


Stefan Bekiranov

Bekiranov, Stefan

Computational Biology; Bioinformatics; Precision Medicine; Machine Learning/AI; Quantum Computing



John Bushweller

Bushweller, John H.

Drug Development Targeting Transcription Drivers in Cancer; Structure/Function Studies of Transcription Factor Drivers in Cancer


Mete Civelek

Civelek, Mete

Systems Genetics Approaches to Understand Cardiometabolic Traits


Anna Cliffe

Cliffe, Anna

Herpes Simplex Virus Infection of Neurons



Edward Egelman

Egelman, Edward H.

Structure and Function of Macromolecular Complexes Using Electron Microscopy


Charles Farber

Farber, Charles R.

Systems Genetics of Skeletal Development and Maintenance




Hao Jiang

Jiang, Hao

Regulation of stem cell function and tumorigenesis by epigenetics and biomolecular condensation (phase separation)


Hui Li

Li, Hui

Gene regulation in cancer, RNA processing; Epigenetic modification; Stem cell and development

Marty Mayo

Mayo, Marty W.

Transcriptional Regulation by NFKB


Golam Mohi

Mohi, Golam

Cell signaling, stem cell biology, molecular and epigenetic mechanisms of blood and breast cancers


Bryce Paschal

Paschal, Bryce M.

Nuclear Transport, Signaling, and Cancer


Lucy Pemberton

Pemberton, Lucy F.

Nuclear Transport in Chromatin Assembly and Transcriptional Regulation


David Rekosh

Rekosh, David M.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus Gene Expression; Human Endogenous Viruses; SARS-CoV-2 Protein Trafficking; Post-transcriptional Gene Regulation


Nathan Sheffield

Sheffield, Nathan

computational biology & bioinformatics; high performance computing; epigenomics & chromatin; pediatric cancer; computational regulatory genomics; machine learning



Jeffrey Smith

Smith, Jeffrey S.

Transcriptional Silencing and Aging in Yeast


P. Todd Stukenberg

Stukenberg, P. Todd

Mechanisms of chromosome segregation in Mitosis and generation of Chromosomal Instability in tumors


Yuh-Hwa Wang

Wang, Yuh-Hwa

Genome instability in cancer and repeat expansion diseases


David Wotton

Wotton, David

Regulation of Gene Expression, Development and Tumor Progression by TGF beta Signaling


Martin Wu

Wu, Martin

Research: microbial evolution and ecology, microbial genomics, metagenomics, bioinformatics, phylogenomics, endosymbionts


Chongzhi Zang

Zang, Chongzhi

Bioinformatics methodology development; Epigenetics and chromatin biology; Transcriptional regulation; Cancer genomics and epigenomics; Statistical methods for biomedical data integration; Advanced machine learning; Theoretical and computational biophysic