Educational Background:

• Dr. Ko's research team is focusing on the role of nuclear receptor coactivators in human cancer. Nuclear receptors participate in transcriptional regulation in many biological events including cancer. Coactivators are protein factors that stimulate receptor-mediated gene activation through ligand-dependent interaction of the receptors. They have previously cloned and characterized a novel nuclear receptor coactivator GT198. GT198 is a BRCA1 locus gene, and is up-regulated in breast and ovarian cancers. Evidence also suggests that GT198 is involved in embryonic and germ cell development, and relates to cell-cycle regulation and apoptosis. Thus, transcriptional coactivators and cancer gene products might be intrinsically connected. Their goal is to understand how coactivator GT198 cell-specifically controls cancer and embryonic development, and to identify tumor-related genes that involve coactivators.