Our Science – Cam Website

Hugh P. Cam, Ph.D.

Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Chromosome Biology Section Post-Doctoral Fellow (CRTA) 9000 Rockville Pike Building 37 Room 6050 Bethesda, MD 20892 Phone:   3014025531 Fax:   Fax Number not listed E-Mail:   camh@mail.nih.gov

Education

Degree:   Ph.D.
Field of Degree:   Molecular Biology
Degree Institution:   Harvard University
Date Degree Granted:   05-2003

Biography

(1995-1997)- Undergraduate research on the cap development of the giant unicellular algae Acetabularia acetabulum in the laboratory of Dr. David Herrin at the University of Texas, Austin.

(1997)- Howard Hughes Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow at the University of Texas, Austin.

(1998-2003)- Graduate research on the roles of pRB-E2F in cell cycle control and tumorigenesis in the laboratory of Dr. Brian D. Dynlacht at Harvard University.

(2003-2004)- Postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Brian D. Dynlacht at New York University School of Medicine.

(2004-present)- Postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Shiv Grewal at The Center for Cancer Research of The National Cancer Institute.

Research

Repetitive elements constitute a significant fraction of eukaryotic genomes. My current research aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which repetitive elements impinge upon the various chromatin transactions and organization of the genome. Recent studies from the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe indicate that cells employ a variety of RNA- and DNA-based mechanisms to regulate repetitive elements. A picture has begun to emerge from our studies of how organization of repetitive elements could give rise to distinct functional chromatin domains and higher-order chromatin structures. I have been engaged in the development of functional genomic tools such as whole-genome transcriptional profiling and ChIP-chip location analyses to construct a global picture of chromatin dynamics. The availability of these tools has provided us with an unprecedented detailed view of how various cellular factors converge on repetitive elements to assemble disparate chromatin domains. We found that repetitive elements embedded within large transcriptionally silent heterochromatin domains are under the epigenetic control of RNAi and heterochromatin machineries (Cam et al., Nature Genetics 2005). In contrast, interspersed repetitive elements which correspond mostly to transposable elements and their remnants, are regulated by a distinct DNA-based mechanism mediated by the fission yeast homologs of mammalian CENP-B (Cam et al., Nature 2008). I am designing experiments to obtain a clearer view of how epigenetic control of repetitive elements, a large fraction of which are often located near gene promoters, could modulate gene regulatory networks that could have implications in the development of human diseases associated with repetitive elements.

This page was last updated on 2/23/2009.