Research Program: Genetic Mechanisms of Cancer
Professor, Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development

perryh@umn.edu
612-624-6736- office
612-624-4206- lab
Preferred method of contact: e-mail

Dr. Hackett received a B.S. in Physics at Stanford University in 1968 and a Ph.D. in Biophysics and Genetics from the University of Colorado in 1974. He conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology in Germany (1976-1977) and at the University of California, San Francisco (1978-1980). He joined the Department of Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Minnesota in 1980. He took a 5-yr leave of absence to establish a biotech startup company, Discovery Genomics, Inc. in the Twin Cities.

Research Interests

Gene expression during development in vertebrates is regulated at the transcriptional and translational levels. Our main area of interest is using transposons as vectors for gene therapy as well as tagging and mapping genes in vertebrate chromosomes. The transposon system, called Sleeping Beauty because it was resurrected from an evolutionary sleep of more than 10 million years. The Sleeping Beauty system appears to be the most efficacious method for inserting genes into human chromosomes without using viruses. Our lab works very closely with other labs in the Beckman Center for Transposon Research (Voytas, Largaespada and McIvor labs)

Selected Publications

Ohlfest JR, Frandsen JL, Fritz S, Lobitz PD, Perkinson SG, Clark KJ, Key NS, McIvor RS, Hackett PB, Largaespada DA. Phenotypic correction and long-term Factor VIII expression in hemophilic mice by immunotolerization and nonviral gene transfer using the Sleeping Beauty transposon System. Blood 2005;105: 2691-2698.

Hackett PB, Ekker SC, Largaespada DA McIvor RS. Sleeping Beauty transposon-mediated gene therapy for prolonged expression. Adv Genet. 2005;54:187-229.

Liu G, Geurts AM,Yae K, Srinivassan AR, Fahrenkrug SC, Largaespada DA, Olson WK, Takeda J, Horie K, Hackett PB. Target-site preference for Sleeping Beauty transposons. J Mol Biol. 2005;346:161-173.

Essner, J.J., R.S. McIvor and P.B. Hackett (2005). Awakening of gene therapy with Sleeping Beauty transposons. Curr Opin Pharmacol. 2005;5:513-519.

Wadman SA, Clark KJ, Hackett PB. Fishing for answers with transposons. Mar Biotech. 2005;7:135-141.

Geurts AM, Wilber A, Carlson CM, Lobitz PD, Clark KJ, Hackett PB, McIvor RS, Largaespada DA. Conditional gene expression in the mouse using a Sleeping Beauty gene-trap transposon. BMC Biotechnol. 2006;6:30.

Balciunas D, Wangensteen KJ, Wilber A, Bell J, Geurts A, Sivasubbu S, Wang X, Hackett PB, Largaespada DA, McIvor RS, Ekker SC. Harnessing a high cargo-capacity transposon for genetic applications in vertebrates. PLoS Genet. 200610;2:e169.

Hackett PB. Integrating DNA vectors for gene therapy. Mol Ther. 2007;15:10-2.

Aronovich EL, Bell JB, Belur LR, Gunther R, Koniar B, Erickson DC, Schachern PA, Matise I, McIvor RS, Whitley CB, Hackett PB. Prolonged expression of a lysosomal enzyme in mouse liver after Sleeping Beauty transposon-mediated gene delivery: implications for non-viral gene therapy of mucopolysaccharidoses. J Gene Med. 2007;9:403-15.

Hackett CS, Geurts AM, Hackett PB. Predicting preferential DNA vector insertion sites: implications for functional genomics and gene therapy. Genome Biol. 2007;8 Suppl 1:S12.

Bell JB, Podetz-Pedersen KM, Aronovich EL, Belur LR, McIvor RS, Hackett PB. Preferential delivery of the Sleeping Beauty transposon system to livers of mice by hydrodynamic injection. Nat Protoc. 2007;2:3153-65.