About
Biochemist Philip Hieter is recognized for his work on structural and regulatory proteins that ensure faithful segregation of chromosomes during cell division.
His work has also demonstrated and advocated the value of yeast and other model experimental organisms for understanding mechanisms of human disease.
Genes that maintain genome structure are often mutated in cancer. Hieter’s laboratory has established an extensive catalogue of genes required for genome stability in yeast, which provides a resource to identify cross-species, candidate human genes that are somatically mutated in cancer. The lab has developed a strategy to identify genes in yeast synthetic lethal interaction networks, based on yeast CIN genes whose human counterparts are mutated in cancers, as a means for identifying novel therapeutic targets for targeted killing of cancer cells.
Awards
- Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 2005
- Fellow, Canadian Academy of Health Science, 2011
- President, Genetics Society of America, 2012
- Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2016
- George W. Beadle Award, Genetics Society of America, 2018
Relevant Publications
Van Pel, D., Barrett I., Shimizu, Y., Sajeshd, B., Guppy, B., Pfeifer, T., McManus, K., Hieter, P. (2013). An Evolutionarily Conserved Synthetic Lethal Interaction Network Identifies FEN1 as a Broad-spectrum Target for Anticancer Therapeutic Development. PLoS Genetics 9(1):e1003254.
Bailey, M.L., O’Neil, N.J., van Pel, D.M., Solomon, D.A., Waldman, T., Hieter, P. (2014). Glioblastoma cells containing mutations in the cohesion component, STAG2, are sensitive to PARP inhibition. Mol Cancer Ther 13(3):724-32.
O’Neil, N.J., Moshgabadi, N., Hieter, P. (2014) Synthetic Cytotoxicity: Digenic Interactions with TEL1/ATM Mutations Reveal Sensitivity to Low Doses of Camptothecin. Genetics 197(2):611-23.
Duffy, S., Fam, H.K., Wang, Y., Styles, E., Kim, J-H., Ang, J.S., Singh, T., Larionov, V., Shah, S., Andrews, B., Boerkoel, C., Hieter, P. (2016). Over-expression screens identify conserved dosage chromosome instability genes in yeast and human cancer. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 113:9967-76.