Leanne M. Wiedemann, Ph.D.

Contact Information:
Stowers Institute for Medical Research
1000 East 50th Street
Kansas City, MO 64110

Phone: 816-926-4052
Fax: 816-926-2009
Email: lmw at stowers-institute.org

Training:

Ph.D., Ohio State University (Biochemistry), 1980
Postdoctoral Fellow, American Cancer Society and NATO/NSF, Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, Scotland, 1982-1985
Postdoctoral Fellow (NIH training grant), Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1980-1982.

Academic Position:

Associate Professor
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
School of Medicine
University of Kansas Medical Center

Research Interests:

The primary objective of my research is the identification and characterization of genes altered as a result of chromosomal translocations and the determination of their role in leukemogenesis. In order to achieve this, we utilize in vivo and in vitro model systems including primary bone marrow cultures from chick and mouse, transgenic animals, knock-in technology. We incorporate comparative genomic analyses, RNA and protein analysis and look forward to moving into microarray technologies. Information deduced from our studies is also used to design molecular methodologies, which will assist in diagnosis and management of leukemia and lymphoma. We focus on the molecular events that occur in leukemias with translocations involving the MLL gene, a gene normally involved in the regulation of HOX genes. In our efforts to understand the altered role of these proteins in leukemogenesis, we need to explore their normal function as well. This has developed into additional projects describing the regulatory mechanism controlling candidate genes downstream of the affected proteins.

Selected Recent Publications:

1. Wiedemann, L.M., MacGregor, A., and Caldas, C. (1999). Analysis of the region of the 5' end of the MLL gene involved in genomic duplication events. British Journal of Haematology 105, 256-264
2. So, C. W., Sham, M.H., Chew, S.L., Cheung, N., Chung, S.K., Caldas, C., Wiedemann, L.M., and Chan, L.C. (2000). Expression and protein-binding studies of the EEN gene family, new interacting partners for dynamin, synaptojanin and huntingtin proteins. Biochemical Journal 348, 447-458.
3. Greaves MF, Wiedemann, LM (2002) Biology of Leukaemia. In: Oxford Textbook of Oncology (Eds. R Souhami, I Tannock, P Hohenberger, JC Horiot), Second Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford Vol. 2 pp 2713-2190
4. Schulte, C.E., von Lindern, M., Steinlein, P., Beug, H., and Wiedemann, L.M. (2002). MLL-ENL cooperates with SCF to transform primary avian multipotent cells. EMBO Journal 21, 4297-4306
5. Tümpel, S., Maconochie, M., Wiedemann, L.M., and Krumlauf, R. (2002). Conservation and diversity in the cis-regulatory networks that integrate information controlling expression of Hoxa2 in hindbrain and cranial neural crest cells in vertebrates. Developmental Biology 246, 45-56
6. Zhang, J., Niu, C., Ye, L., Huang, H., He, X., Tong, W.-G., Ross, J., Haug, J., Johnson, T., Feng, J.Q., Harris, S., Wiedemann, L.M., Mishina, Y., and Li, L. (2003). Identification of the haematopoietic stem cell niche and control of the niche size. Nature 425, 836-841