Nicholas Aboreden, PhD

Only two percent of the human genome contains instructions for making proteins. Much of the remaining 98 percent, once referred to as “genomic dark matter,” consists of regulatory elements that act as molecular switches to turn genes on or off. These molecular switches are broadly categorized into two groups: enhancers (on-switches) and silencers (off-switches). While it is well-known that cancers exploit enhancer elements to amplify the expression of growth-promoting genes, silencers remain poorly understood. Dr. Aboreden’s research focuses on the repressive mechanisms that cancer cells use to sustain uncontrolled growth. He is mapping the regulatory genome of an aggressive type of pediatric leukemia characterized by widespread gene repression. By identifying silencer elements that these cancer cells use to maintain a malignant state, his work aims to identify new therapeutic vulnerabilities to selectively target cancer. The insights gleaned from this work will have broad relevance across diverse tumor types. Dr. Aboreden received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, his MS from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and his BS from Liberty University, Lynchburg.