March 2022
We are so proud of Christie Nguyen for an impeccable and successful thesis defense ‘Altered transcription factor dynamics in PBAF-deficient melanoma’!
March 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Saul Carcamo on his outstanding thesis defense focused on SWI/SNF subcomplex dynamics in malignant melanoma!
February 2021
Congratulations to Drs. Flávia Ghiraldini and Dan Filipescu on their comprehensive review of histone variants and their chaperones in the pathogenesis of solid cancers.
Solid tumours hijack the histone variant network
Nature Reviews Cancer. 2021 Feb 10. PMID: 33568791
October 2019
Congratulations to Zulehka Qadeer and members of the Bernstein lab for their finding that that neuroblastoma in older children and adolescents harboring large deletions within the ATRX gene may be responsive to EZH2 inhibitor targeted therapy.
The team found that EZH2 and REST cooperate to block genes responsible for neuron development, and EZH2 inhibition induces killing of ATRX altered neuroblastoma cells.
This study was published online in Cancer Cell on October 17, 2019.
October 2018
Congrats to Zhen Sun, Dan Filipescu and colleagues for identifying the mechanism underlying de novo macroH2A histone variant deposition!
MacroH2A domain pruning
Bernstein and colleagues show that histone variant macroH2A is deposited across the mouse genome and subsequently pruned from transcriptionally active regions to establish macroH2A chromatin domains.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41594-018-0134-5
September 2018
Congratulations to Dr. Zhen Sun on his outstanding thesis defense!
August 2018
Congratulations to Thomas Strub and members of the Bernstein lab for their discovery of the HDAC SIRT6 in BRAF-mutant melanoma as a novel epigenetic regulator of resistance to BRAF and MEK inhibitors. This work also identified IGFBP2 as a potential biomarker for MAPKi resistance. This study was published in Nature Communications on Aug. 24, 2018.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6109055/
November 2017
Congratulations to Dan Hasson and the Bernstein & Hernando teams for their discovery of AMIGO2 as a survival gene and potential therapeutic target for metastatic melanoma. This work was published Nov. 16, 2017 and made the cover!
On the cover: An artistic representation of a genomic Self-Organizing Map, which displays the enrichment patterns of histone H3 acetylated at lysine 27 (H3K27ac) marking active regulatory regions in metastatic melanoma. In this issue of Molecular Cell, Fontanals-Cirera and Hasson et al. (pp. 731–744) mapped the melanoma enhancer landscape and identified AMIGO2 and its interactor PTK7 as a therapeutically targetable axis to inhibit melanoma cell survival. They further demonstrate that AMIGO2 is regulated by “super-enhancers” acquired during melanoma pathogenesis. Mosaic work by Dan Hasson. Photographed by Maru Teppei.
June 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Zulekha Qadeer on her outstanding thesis defense!
March 2017
Congratulations to Maddy who successfully ‘matched’ at ISMMS for a Dermatology residency! She will join our program in July 2018.
July 2016
Congratulations to Jay Chung, Zhen Sun & Alex Gaspar-Maia on their publication in Cell Reports!
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2016.06.002
May 2016
Congratulations to Dr. Jay Chung for successfully defending his thesis!
April 2016
Congratulations to David Valle-Garcia!
His paper ‘ATRX binds to atypical chromatin domains at the 3′ exons of zinc finger genes to preserve H3K9me3 enrichment’ has been published in Epigenetics.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27029610
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PhD candidate Zulekha Qadeer speaks about her neuroblastoma work funded by St. Baldrick’s Foundation at the Northport fundraising event on Friday, March 11th.
Congrats to Zu!
March 17th, 2016: Zulekha Qadeer awarded the Department of Defense Horizon Award for her proposal entitled “Investigating the Mechanisms Underlying ATRX Mutant Neuroblastoma’.