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

zarko001@umn.edu
612-625-9450 - office
612-626-4259 - lab
Preferred method of contact: E-mail

Dr. Zarkower received a B.S. degree in biochemistry from the Pennsylvania State University in 1983 and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989. He conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. Jonathan Hodgkin at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England from 1989-1994. Since 1995 he has been on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, where he currently is an Associate Professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development.

Research Interests

The long term goal of research in my laboratory is to understand the molecular and genetic control of sexual differentiation. We use the nematode worm C. elegans and the mouse as models that allow us to rapidly discover genes that control these processes and uncover how they function. We are particularly interested in a group of genes we discovered called DM domain genes, which control sexual development in many different types of animals. Much of our current work is concentrated on understanding how these genes function and their roles in human disease, including testicular cancer.

Selected Publications

Kim S, Bardwell VJ, Zarkower D.Cell type-autonomous and non-autonomous requirements for Dmrt1 in postnatal testis differentiation. Dev Biol. 2007, [Epub ahead of print].

Kim S, Namekawa SH, Niswander LM, Ward JO, Lee JT, Bardwell VJ, Zarkower D. A mammal-specific Doublesex homolog associates with male sex chromatin and is required for male meiosis. PLoS Genet. 2007;3:e62.

Ross JM, Kalis A, Zarkower D. The DM domain protein MAB-3 promotes sex-specific neurogenesis in C. elegans by regulating bHLH proteins. Dev Cell 2005;8:881-892.

Thoemke K, Yi W, Ross JM, Kim S, Reinke V, Zarkower D. Genome-wide analysis of sex-enriched gene expression during C. elegans larval development. Dev Biol. 2005;284:500-508.

Chang W, Tilmann C, Thoemke K, Markussen F-H, Mathies LD, Kimble J, and Zarkower D. A forkhead protein controls sexual identity of the C. elegans male gonad. Development. 2004;131: 1425-1436.

Ross J, Zarkower D. Polycomb group regulation of Hox gene expression in C. elegans. Dev Cell 2003;4:891-901.

Zarkower D. Establishing sexual dimorphism: conservation amidst diversity? Nat Rev Genet. 2001;2:175-185.