Jason Gertz

Biography

Jason Gertz, PhD, is an investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) and an assistant professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah. He is also a member of the Nuclear Control of Cell Growth and Differentiation Program. Dr. Gertz studies the role of transcription factors in cancer.The inappropriate expression of genes is a common defect across different types of cancer. Transcription factors, which orchestrate gene expression patterns by interacting with specific loci throughout the genome, play a key role in the growth and development of tumors. Dr. Gertz’s research goal is to understand how transcription factors choose their genomic binding sites, how binding events lead to gene expression changes, and how the actions of transcription factors are altered in cancer. To determine the roles that transcription factors play in gene regulation, his lab uses and develops experimental methods that take advantage of next-generation sequencing to create high-resolution maps of gene regulatory networks. The Gertz lab also utilizes cutting edge computational approaches to take full advantage of these rich genomic datasets. The study of transcription factors in cancer promises to lead to new therapeutic targets and an understanding of key events that occur during tumorigenesis.Dr. Gertz received a BA in Mathematics with concentrations in Computer Science and Economics from Cornell University in 2003. In 2008, he received a PhD in Computational Biology from Washington University School of Medicine. He was a postdoctoral fellow in Richard M. Myers’ laboratory at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.

Research Interest

Breast Cancer Gene Expression Regulation Transcription Factors Endometrial Cancer Estrogen Receptors