Rob Roeder, form the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Rockefeller University in New York, USA, will give a talk entitled "Transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in animal cells" on Thursday September 2 at 12:00 at the seminar room 473.10 of the PRBB (C/ Dr. Aiguader, 88). He was invited by Chiara Di Vona (CRG).

Roeder is a pioneer in eukaryotic transcription. He discovered the three enzymes (eukaryotic RNA polymerases) that copy DNA in RNA in animal cells. He is interested in understanding how cells control or regulate transcription and how this process breaks down in certain diseases such as cancer. Roeder aims to determine the nature and mechanism of action of both the general tran¬scription machinery that is commonly used by all genes and gene- and cell type-specific factors that directly regulate target genes in response to various growth, developmental and stress stimuli. He has developed a biochemical tool called the cell-free system that allows researchers to recreate the essence of transcription in a test tube with cloned genes and cellular extracts. Apart from detailing the mechanisms by which specific target genes are activated by individual transcriptional activators and essential cofactors, he is also interested in determining differential usage of cofactors by different activators or by the same activator in different cell types or on different target genes and, especially, how variations in cofactors can dictate cell fate.