Elizabeth Crouch '04 Co-Authors Article in Journal Nature

June 23, 2007

June 23, 2007, Greencastle, Ind. -  An article co-authored by Elizabeth Crouch, a 2004 graduate of DePauw University, was published in the June 7, 2007 issue of Nature.  Titled, "The ATM repair pathway inhibits RNA polymerase I transcription in response to chromosome breaks," Crouch says the work "represents a huge collaborative effort, in the data collection, analysis, and generation of ideas."

Crouch, who is working toward a M.D./Ph.D. degree in biomedical research through the prestigious NIH/Oxford/Cambridge Scholars Program, calls the research she and her colleagues conducted a "big step in understanding how our cells deal with damage to our DNA. Polymerase I is one of the three protein-making machines in our cells, so to speak. This particular one is special because polymerase I is very sensitive to stress in the cell, and it can shut off its protein production capabilities. This mechanism serves as a safety value to tell the cell to slow down and deal with the threat to its DNA integrity.

"In this paper, we reported the discovery of a novel role for a protein that mediates this shut-off. This protein is called Ataxia Telegectasia Mutated, because patients with problems, or mutations, in this protein's function have a syndrome called Ataxia-telangiectasia (AT) . It's a severe, progressive disease characterized by immune deficiencies and very early neural degeneration. The disease is rare, thankfully, but the protein is widely studied because its malfunction in specific tissues has been associated with many different types of cancer. A better understanding of all aspects of this protein's function will improve prognosises for both rare conditions like AT and more common diseases like cancer."

Access the text at the journal's Web site.

Another article co-authored by Betsy Crouch was published this spring in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Crouch began her training in the fall as a student at Columbia University Medical School in New York. She plans to embark on work toward a Ph.D. in the summer of 2008 through a collaborative program of the NIH and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. After approximately four years training at NIH and Cambridge University, Crouch will return to Columbia for the completion of her medical school training.  Read more in this previous story.

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