Dr. Yang received his A.B. degree from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of California, Irvine with Dr. Barbara Hamkalo. As a postdoctoral fellow, he studied medical and human molecular genetics with Dr. C. Thomas Caskey at the Baylor College of Medicine, and transcriptional regulation and epigenetics with Dr. Arthur D. Riggs at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope. Dr. Yang joined the Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1988 and rose to the rank of Professor in 1999. He also serves as the Program Director of the Center for Mammalian Genetics in the College of Medicine, a member of the American Cancer Society, Florida Division, Peer Review Committee, and was a member of the National Institutes of Health Biological Sciences-1 Study Section. |
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The major research focus of the laboratory is the epigenetic regulation of transcription. We employ two classic systems of epigenetic regulation in mammals: X chromosome inactivation (XCI) and genomic imprinting. These are systems of monoallelic gene expression whereby both a transcriptionally active and inactive allele of a given gene reside within the same nucleus. We are particularly interested in the roles DNA methylation, chromatin structure, and DNA-protein interactions play in activating and/or repressing transcription by XCI and imprinting. For XCI, we study regulation of the X-linked Hprt gene on the active (Xa) and inactive (Xi) X chromosomes; we use gene targeting strategies in mice to study regulatory elements that may mediate the establishment and/or maintenance of chromatin structure and DNA methylation patterns on the Xa and Xi during development. For genomic imprinting, we study mechanisms involved in the parent-of-origin expression of genes in the Angelman/Prader-Willi syndrome (AS/PWS) region. We are particularly interested in DNA-protein interactions within the AS/PWS imprinting center which regulates parent-of-origin expression of genes throughout this 2 Mb region. |
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Professor