J. Peter Gergen

Biography

J. Peter Gergen joined as Professor of Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology,The Stony Brook University School of Medicine.

Research Interest

Research in the Gergen laboratory uses the developmental genetic framework of the Drosophila embryo to investigate the regulation of gene expression, with a primary focus on the Runt transcription factor. Runt is the founding member of the Runx family of transcriptional regulators. Runx proteins are present in all animal species examined, but not in plant or microbial eukaryotic systems. Runt is best characterized for its role in the Drosophila embryo where it has vital roles in several pathways, including sex determination, segmentation, and neurogenesis . Mutations in all three human Runx genes are associated with genetic disease, and targeted mutagenesis experiments in the mouse indicate that these genes have vital roles in several pathways, including hematopoeisis, neurogenesis and osteogenesis A unifying aspect of Runx function in these many different pathways is a role in cell fate specification. An intriguing aspect of regulation by Runt and the vertebrate Runx proteins is that they function both as transcriptional activators and repressors, depending both on the specific target gene and the developmental context. Indeed, this context-dependence is central to the Runt-dependent regulation of the segment-polarity genes during segmentation.