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

simon004@umn.edu
612-626-5097 — office
612-626-5125 — lab
Preferred method of contact: e-mail

Dr. Simon received a B.A. in biochemistry from Cornell University in 1981 and a Ph.D. in molecular biology at Cornell in 1987. He conducted his postdoctoral work in molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School, 1987-1992.

Research Interests

1. Control of gene expression
2. Chromatin structure and function
3. Epigenetic basis of cancer
4. Animal development

Selected Publications

Wang, L., Jahren, N., Vargas, M.L., Andersen, E.F., Benes, J., Zhang, J., Miller, E.L., Jones, R.S. and Simon, J.A. (2006). Alternative ESC and ESC-Like subunits of a Polycomb group histone methyltransferase complex are differentially deployed during Drosophila development. Mol Cell Biol. 26:2637-2647.

Ketel, C.S., Andersen, E.F., Vargas, M.L., Suh, J., Strome, S. and Simon, J.A. (2005). Subunit contributions to histone methyltransferase activities of fly and worm Polycomb group complexes. Mol Cell Biol. 25, 6857-6868.

Peterson, A.J., Mallin, D.R., Francis, N.J., Ketel, C.S., Stamm, J., Voeller, R.K., Kingston, R.E. and Simon, J. A. (2004). Requirement for Sex Comb on Midleg protein interactions in Drosophila Polycomb group repression. Genetics 167, 1225-1239.

Muller, J., Hart, C.M., Francis, N.J., Vargas, M.L., Sengupta, A., Wild, B., Miller, E.L., O'Connor, M.B., Kingston, R.E. and Simon, J.A. (2002). Histone methyltransferase activity of a Drosophila Polycomb group repressor complex. Cell 111, 197-208.

Simon, J.A. and Tamkun, J.W. (2002). Programming off and on states in chromatin: mechanisms of polycomb and trithorax group complexes. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 12, 210-218.