Tom Cech

Some neurological disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), fragile X syndrome, Huntington's disease, myotonic dystrophy, and various ataxias, can be caused by expansions of short nucleic acid sequence repeats in specific genes. A possible disease mechanism involves the transcribed repeat RNA binding an RNA-binding protein (RBP), resulting...

Telomerase is pathologically reactivated in most human cancers, where it maintains chromosomal telomeres and allows immortalization. Because telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) is usually the limiting component for telomerase activation, numerous studies have measured TERT mRNA levels in populations of cells or in tissues. In comparison, little is known about TERT...

Polycomb-repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is a histone methyltransferase that is critical for regulating transcriptional repression in mammals. Its catalytic subunit, EZH2, is responsible for the trimethylation of H3K27 and also undergoes automethylation. Using mass spectrometry analysis of recombinant human PRC2, we identified three methylated lysine residues (K510, K514, and K515)...

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), an enzyme associated with nearly all malignant human cancers, is even more diverse and unconventional than previously realized, new University of Colorado Boulder research finds. Telomeres, the protective ends of chromosomes, help to maintain genomic stability. In most normal adult human cells, the telomeres eventually shorten...

Healthy cells have a built-in self-destruct mechanism: Strands of DNA called "telomeres" act as protective caps on the ends of your chromosomes. Each time a cell replicates, telomeres get a little shorter. Think of it like filing your nails with an Emory board - after enough filing, you hit your...

CU Boulder and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) biochemists have revealed a key regulatory process in a gene-suppressing protein group that could hold future applications for drug discovery and clinical treatment of diseases, including cancer. The new research, recently published in the journal Genes & Development , centered on a...

It’s been 30 years since CU Boulder Distinguished Professor Tom Cech received the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his findings that RNA in living cells is not only a molecule that encodes information but can also function as a catalyst. His discovery laid the foundation for advances in molecular...

CU Boulder's Tom Cech won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1989, but he firmly believes his place is still in the classroom teaching undergraduates. Here, he discusses how teaching adds meaning to his life and how he still works to become a better teacher.

Medical student Daniel Youmans (left) and Tom Cech (right), director of the BioFrontiers Institute, look over an image from a high-powered microscope (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder) Forty years after researchers first discovered it in fruit flies, a once-obscure cluster of proteins called PRC2 has become a key target for new...