Shelley L. Berger

Daniel S. Och University Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology. Leader in epigenetics whose discoveries in that field and particularly in the area of chromatin remodeling include the precise characterization and identification of histone modifications. These have emerged as vital components of the histone language and engendered an explosion in the study of chromatin and epigenetics since 1996. In her research on the role of histone modifications in physiology-including cancer/metabolism, aging, viral infection, gametogenesis-she uncovered novel chromatin pathways and modifications. She also discovered novel post-translational modifications of the p53 tumor suppressor, observations that led to the idea that p53 may be abnormally modified in some forms of cancer, indicating that the modifications could be altered to reactivate p53 to create effective new treatments for the disease. Current research is to define the mechanisms by which epigenetic modifications affect chromatin structure and gene expression in normal and diseased states.