Edward Chuong, PhD, Recognized for His Work With Transposons

The Worldwide Cytokine and Interferon Society has acknowledged University of Colorado Cancer Centermember Edward ChuongPhD, with its 2023 ICIS-Regeneron New Investigator Award for Excellence in Cytokine and Interferon Research.

Chuong, a researcher and assistant professor of molecular, mobile, and developmental biology on the College of Colorado Boulder, was chosen for the award for his work with historic cell genetic components known as transposons.

“We consider them as virus-like components which can be embedded inside our DNA,” Chuong says. “Viruses are genetic parasites within the sense {that a} viral genome encodes the power to parasitize a number cell and make extra copies of itself. A transposon, equally, can be a genetic parasite that may hijack the host cell to duplicate itself. The distinction is {that a} transposon, moderately than leaving the cell and infecting one other cell, is trapped throughout the cell. It copies and pastes itself all through the genetic materials of the host cell. In case you consider the genome of any organism on the planet, together with people, a whole lot of our DNA is derived from transposons.”

Transposons and immune signaling

Chuong’s lab is very within the position of transposons in immune signaling regulation, or the communication community our cells use to coordinate the immune system. He’s trying on the results of transposons on interferon, naturally occurring proteins that defend the physique from viruses. By analyzing long-read RNA knowledge from human cells, he has discovered that transposons can each assist and hinder interferon receptors within the immune system, analysis which will result in new targets for drugs.

“The immune system is an advanced signaling community,” he says. “Ailments like autoimmunity or extreme COVID occur when one thing goes fallacious with that communication community. We expect transposons play an underrecognized however necessary position in shaping our immune response. In case you consider the human genome as an ecosystem, it is like an enviornment the place this battle between transposons and the host is enjoying out.”

The most cancers connection

Chuong is also finding out biologically important transposons that have an effect on gene regulation within the contexts of immunity and most cancers. Integrating practical genomic analyses with experimental research, his lab is trying to achieve a greater understanding of transposon co-option. Already, his work has offered key proof supporting necessary roles for transposons in shaping mammalian evolution and illness.

“In most cancers, most of the transposons which can be sometimes silenced in wholesome cells turn into reactivated,” says Chuong, who was acknowledged as a Kavli fellow in 2021 and has aggressive grants together with a NIGMS ESI R35, Packard Fellowship, Sloan Fellowship, and Boettcher Investigator award. “We research their penalties in that regard as effectively. The large image right here is that transposons are an underappreciated however plentiful supply of enhancers, genes, and different practical components in our genome.”

In January 2023, Chuong and CU Most cancers Middle member Benjamin LicePhD, published a paper on resistance to immunotherapy in ladies with ovarian cancer. The analysis is simply one of many partnerships Chuong has with different most cancers middle members to discover the position of transposons in making the immune system roughly prone to remedy.

“My lab has just lately began this specific axis and the way it can go fallacious in most cancers,” he says. “Which may trigger remedy resistance in sure cancers, particularly since so many therapies depend on these immune signaling pathways to be efficient. Interferon is authorized by the FDA to deal with myeloma and a number of other different cancers, and I wish to look additional into the implications of transposons on that remedy.”