Heather Hook, Biology PhD candidate of the Siggers Lab, is this year’s recipient of the Charles Terner Award. In the Siggers lab, Heather has been working on the development of a novel, high-throughput technique to profile transcription factor – cofactor complex recruitment to DNA to determine a cell’s key regulators. Heather has applied this technique to several applications, including mapping cofactor recruitment to disease associated single nucleotide polymorphisms. This approach can be broadly applied to many biological systems to map transcription factor – cofactor complexes to genomic regions to uncover cell specific complexes and their DNA sequence dependence.
This award provides support for a CM or MCBB PhD candidate who has made significant contributions to their field. Charles Terner was a Professor of Biology at Boston University for over 20 years before he retired in 1985. Dr. Terner specialized in biochemistry and focused his research on the metabolic properties of male reproductive cells. The award was established in his memory after he passed away in 1998.
Congratulations, Heather!