Up close, a thin slice of a human cell wall might look like the Great Wall of China, with an array of towers, tubes and molecular mailboxes. Getting a message through is tricky. The molecule must hit the right receptor, a kind of smart mailbox that regulates life, screening messages, letting only a few bind to the cell.
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From grade school, we learned in biology how we inherit blue or brown eyes. Simple as A B C. It’s that blue or brown-eyes gene, part of a recipe called DNA in our cells. Now it turns out, it’s not so simple. And what’s really going on is much more dramatic.
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For years, biomedical science has been turning individual genes on and off as way to treat gene-based maladies, and as a research tool. Now, a new challenge involves finding ways to bring the entire genetic blueprint of humans, animals and plants into play.
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For most bioscientists, a slice of Nobel Prize fame would be a very big deal. For the UA’s Tom Doetschman, it is minor compared to his new goal: helping prevent colon cancer. Asked about his role in the 2007 Nobel Prize, Doetschman says drily, “I got mentioned.” Then he adds, “Those were heady days.” But these days, he has high hopes for the UA’s “knockout mouse” program, which he founded and which has already achieved global prominence in the field that was honored with that Nobel Prize in medicine. It is a UA core facility, called Genetically Engineered Mouse Models, or GEMM Core.
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Walt Piegorsch, PhD, is a trailblazer. At UA, he is redesigning statistics education, and on the global stage he is taking statistical knowledge across disciplines to help quantify all manner of risks, from chemical toxins to terrorism. Piegorsch, a top expert on environmental risk, is the director of a new UA program in statistics and a professor of mathematics in the College of Science. He is also a member of the UA’s BIO5 Institute.
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