Zefeng Wang (Damon Runyon Fellow '03-'06) of UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, discovered that a protein crucial to the process of gene splicing, called RBM4, is drastically decreased in multiple forms of human cancer, including lung and breast cancers. This reduction in RBM4 results in altered gene expression, giving rise to cancer development and metastasis. Components of the splicing pathway could be potential targets for new cancer therapies. The study was published in the journal Cancer Cell.
