Author Archives: Sanjay Thakrar

Pulmonary cysts and pneumothorax are key indicators of BHD syndrome. However, very little is known about the pathophysiology of these lung cysts. A recent Japanese study of 9 families has now shown that not only are BHD cysts different from … Continue reading →

Mutations in genes such as FLCN and VHL are implicated in the development of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). However, DNA methylation and transcriptional silencing at gene promoters can also be involved, as is the case with RASSF1A, which is rarely … Continue reading →

A blog post from January last year described a paper by Purdue et al. (2011) in which a genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified two renal cell carcinoma (RCC) susceptibility loci within HIF2α (on chromosome 2) and an uncharacterised intergenic region (on … Continue reading →

The Fourth BHD Symposium is less than a week away, and this year it will be held in Cincinnati, USA, on 28th to 30th March. Registration is still open and more information regarding the entire Symposium can be found here. … Continue reading →

Our lab-profile for this month introduces the work of Professor Arnim Pause, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Oncology at McGill University, Canada. Much of Professor Pause’s early work involved researching … Continue reading →

In November last year, the 7th National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference was held in Liverpool, UK. This conference focussed on all aspects of cancer research, from basic research to clinical care. Of note, Prof. Dr. Michael Hall from … Continue reading →

Last month, our conference summary highlighted some of the work that is taking place in the field of gene therapy. Currently, many advanced gene therapy systems are derived from viruses, such as the adenovirus and lentivirus. However, these viral vectors … Continue reading →

DNA repair proteins appear to play a significant role in both the development and progression of renal cell carcinoma, as has been discussed in earlier blog posts from 2010 and 2011. These proteins are responsible for repairing DNA lesions caused … Continue reading →

Mutations in VHL are known to be associated with the development of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), and recent sequencing studies have identified several genes involved in chromatin regulation that are also frequently mutated in ccRCC (Dalgliesh et al., 2010; … Continue reading →

This week we would like to introduce Dr Seung-Beom Hong, a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Professor Vera Krymskaya at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Hong was part of the group at the NIH that helped to identify and … Continue reading →