Janet Rowley

Bio

Blum Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and Human Genetics. Dr. Janet Rowley is a pioneer in demonstrating that cancer is a genetic disease. Her work established that cancer is a genetic disease. She demonstrated that mutations in critical genes lead to specific forms of leukemia and lymphoma, and that one can determine the form of cancer present in a patient directly from the cancer’s genes. This changed the way cancer was understood, opened the door to development of drugs directed at the cancer-specific genetic abnormalities and created the paradigm that still drives cancer research.

Research

My laboratory is analyzing the genetic consequences of the recurring chromosome abnormalities seen in human leukemia cells. We have cloned several new genes at translocation breakpoints and are investigating how the chromosome rearrangements alter the structure of the genes and how this in turn alters the structure and function of the proteins. Many of the genes at these breakpoints are transcription factors, and thus the identification of the genes regulated by these proteins will be important. In addition, we are also mapping the region of chromsome deletions to identify the involved genes; these will most likely be tumor suppressor genes. These studies are carried out using not only molecular genetic techniques but also chromosome microdissection and fluorescence in situ hybridization of the appropriate probes to normal metaphase chromosomes and interphase cells as well as to cells from leukemia patients treated at the University of Chicago Medical Center.