Dissertation Defense Announcement:
To: The George Mason University Community
Ganiraju Manyam
PhD Biosciences Candidate
Date: Tuesday December 1, 2009
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Place: George Mason University, Prince William campus
Occoquan Bldg, Room 203
Dissertation Chair: Dr. Ancha Baranova
Title: "Global Patterns of Changes in the Gene Expression Associated With Genesis of Cancer"
A copy of the dissertation is on reserve in the Johnson Center
Library, Fairfax campus.
The doctoral project will not be read at the meeting, but should be
read
in advance.
All members of the George Mason University community are invited
to
attend.
ABSTRACT
Cancer arises from a stepwise
accumulation of genetic changes through expansion of the malignant cell
clones in the population of pre-malignant cells undergoing the
Darwinian selection process. In other words, cancer is an outcome of
continuous and random acquisition of the changes in the genomes of
individual cells. These modifications gradually and progressively
change the phenotype of the normal cell making it more malignant
through a loss of an overall stability of genome. To gain the
comprehension of the mechanisms underlying tumor development, a number
of high-throughput expression studies have been performed. The
objective of the current study is to use publicly available datasets in
order to analyze the most general features of the malignant cell, thus,
investigating molecular phenomena common for all tumor cells, with no
regard to the characteristics related to tumor's tissue of origin.
Thus, we analyzed and compared the transcript diversity patterns in
tumor and normal cells, studied an expression of the genes located
adjacent to the telomeres and provided evidence for the hypothesis that
tumor state behaves as stable "attractor" state. An intermediate
regulatory framework hypothesis implying a set of local "vantage point"
genes that control the transcription of all other genes in a
semi-democratic fashion has been endorsed.