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There are several themes which describe research currently active in the Molecular Oncology Division of the Department of Pathology. One theme concerns the analysis of chromosomal aberrations in human tumors. Over the past eight years associates have cloned DNA surrounding the breakpoints from several chromosomal translocations in human lymphocytic cancers. They have identified several new genes at or near these breakpoints and are currently pursuing studies on the function of these genes in the normal immune system and elsewhere. More recently, they have begun to shift their focus to study of chromosomal translocations in non-hematopoietic tumors. Primarily this work has involved attempts at developing general methods for cloning breakpoints from translocation for which there is no prior information available about nearby genes. Another area of work has arisen from their discovery of so-called antigen receptor gene transrearrangements in normal human and murine lymphocytes. These transrearrangements arise in as many as one in a thousand lymphocytes by way of interchromosomal recombination and seem to produce potentially functional chimeric genes containing V segments from one type of receptor and J and C segments from another. A third research theme concerns the development of molecular techniques for the diagnosing and monitoring of malignant disease in clinical specimens.
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