Naama Barkai, PhD

Named Grant:

The Janice & Jeffrey Bly and Family Project Grant 

About the Investigator:

Dr. Naama Barkai’s research focuses on understanding how cell process information. She received her BSc degree from Hebrew University, and PhD in Physics (summa cum laude) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After postdoctoral training at Princeton University she returned to the Weizmann Institute, where she is now a full Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics.

About the Research:

The goal of Prof. Barkai’s research is to understand how the Steroid Nuclear Receptors recognize their specific binding sites within the vast genome. SR are TF that regulate key events in the emergence, progression, therapy and resistance of prominent tumors, including prostate and breast cancer. Similar to other TFs, the SRs contain DNA binding domains (DBDs), but these do not contain sufficient information for direct addressing within the vast genome. Outside the DBDs, the SR sequences are contain in long stretches of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), namely regions that do not fold into a stable structure. Her team recently found that IDRs play key roles in directing TF binding preferences across genome. In the current proposal, she will study the roles of IDRs of SRs, testing for IDR determinant that governed the selection of their regulatory targets. Through this, her project seeks to define new approaches for targeting these key cancer regulators.