Telomeres and telomerase 

The final session, “Telomeres and Telomerase,” will focus on the challenges associated with the maintenance and protection of the ends of linear chromosomes.

Julie Cooper (Cancer Research UK, London) uses fission yeast to decipher the roles of telomeres in maintaining genome integrity and in guiding chromosomes through meiosis. Her recent work has uncovered a novel mechanism of chromosome end capping in cells that lack functional telomerase.

Madalena Tarsounas (Cancer Research UK, Oxford) studies how proteins involved in homologous recombination contribute to telomere replication and the establishment of protective cap structures. She will discuss results that implicate the tumor suppressor BRCA2 and the Rad51 recombinase in the maintenance of telomere integrity.

Telomerase has long been viewed as an attractive target for anti-cancer drugs, yet we still know little about the regulation of this enzyme. Peter Baumann (Stowers Institute) is interested in how the activity of this ribonucleoprotein complex is controlled at multiple levels from transcriptional regulation and complex assembly to posttranscriptional modifications and recruitment.

Peter Baumann (peb@stowers.org) is an associate investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and Patrick Sung (Patrick.Sung@yale.edu) is professor at Yale University School of Medicine.