• Maria Czyzyk-Krzeska

Maria Czyzyk-Krzeska's Lab
Maria Czyzyk-Krzeska, Professor of Molecular Oncogenesis, received her MD and PhD in physiology at Warsaw Medical School in Warsaw, Poland. She did postdoctoral research in the Department of Physiology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in the laboratory of Dr. David Millhorn. She came to the University of Cincinnati in 1994 as an assistant professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and is currently a full professor at the Genome Research Institute. Her research interests are focused on the regulation of gene expression by hypoxia. Recently, her laboratory has worked on identifying novel substrates for the von Hippel-Lindau (pVHL) tumor suppressor protein complex. Biochemically, pVHL serves as a substrate-recognition molecule of the E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, whose most widely recognized activity is ubiquitylation of the alpha subunits of the hypoxia-inducible transcription factors, targeting them for degradation. pVHL is lost in 40 to 80% of malignant renal clear cell carcinoma cases, and in genetic VHL disease. Work in the C-K laboratory has led to the discovery that the large subunit of RNA Polymerase II, Rpb1, undergoes hydroxylation and ubiquitylation in a pVHL-dependent manner. Ongoing work in the lab is focused on the role of those biochemical modifications in the pathogenesis of kidney cancer.

Selected Publications:
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