Disclaimer: These pages are my personal pages. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology or the Medical Research Council.
I am moving: from the 1st of June 2010 I am at the Laboratory of Biomolecular Research, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
dmitry.veprintsev@psi.ch
I am a senior scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. My research focuses on combinatorial recognition of DNA by tumour-associated transcription factors. Sequence-specific transcription factors bind short specific DNA sequences. They are responsible for interpreting environmental and developmental signals and initiating the cellular response by regulating transcription of their target genes. Because if its size, the eukaryotic genome contains a large number of consensus DNA sequences that transcription factors may recognize, but only a small fraction of these sites are actually bound. Cooperative interactions between different transcription factors which result in increased DNA-binding specificity may provide a mechanism for selecting the active sites. I am applying biophysical approaches to identify and study such interactions and their effects on DNA-binding specificity, focusing on tumour-associated transcription factors p53 and NF-kB and their partner transcription factors.