Dr. Cheryl Lyn Walker directs the Center for Precision Environmental Health at Baylor College of Medicine, where she holds the Alkek Presidential Chair in Environmental Health.  Her research focuses on the epigenetic machinery responsible for “reading, writing and erasing” histone modifications, and the newly discovered role for this machinery outside the nucleus, where it acts directly on the cytoskeleton to regulate the function of microtubules and actin filaments.  Several histone methyltransferases, including SETD2 and NSD3 add methyl marks to key lysine residues of microtubules on the mitotic spindle and neuronal cytoskeleton.  Chromatin remodeling proteins that recognize histone PTMs also “read” these methyl marks on microtubules, including PBRM1 of the pBAF SWI/SNF complex.  In the case of methyl marks on the mitotic spindle, both the SETD2 “writer” and the PBRM1 “reader” are required for genomic stability.  In addition to studying how defects in this machinery drive cancer via perturbation of both chromatin and cytoskeletal functions, her group is also elucidating cell signaling pathways and post-translational modifications that alter the activity of these dual-function chromatin and cytoskeleton remodelers.   Dr. Walker is the recipient of an R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from the NCI and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Speaker(s)

Dr. Cheryl Lyn Walker

Alkek Presidential Chair in Environmental Health / Director, Center for Precision Environmental Health