Foundation for NIH's Sonia Pearson-White, Ph.D, Scientific Program Manager, Cancer, for The Biomarkers Consortium and the I-SPY 2 breast cancer clinical trial, was referenced recently in a new paper published by the American Association for Cancer Research.

Pearson-White's research focused on the Sno gene in mice and humans. Sno stands for ski-related novel, and is the only gene closely related to SKI, discovered at the Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI). Ski and Sno were identified as proto-oncogenes that could induce anchorage-independent growth when over-expressed in avian fibroblasts. SnoN is one of several spliced transcripts expressed from the Sno gene, and is the most highly expressed in humans. SnoN is an important negative regulator of TGF-beta signaling.

Dr. Pearson-White’s laboratory at the University of Virginia did the early characterization of Sno gene expression, and made two lines of knockout mice with different mutations in this gene. This molecular genetic approach revealed that SnoN plays a key role in regulating T cell activation in the immune system. SnoN function is complex and highly dependent on cellular context.

Read the paper in full (PDF)

Related link
Cancer Research Journal