Epigenetics Keynote Speakers

Gerd Pfeifer Professor, City of Hope Medical Center Dr. Gerd Pfeifer is the Lester M. and Irene C. Finkelstein Chair in Biology at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California. Dr. Pfeifer has been active in the areas of epigenetics and genetic toxicology and has authored over 280 publications. Among his scientific achievements are the demonstration of a molecular mechanism of how tobacco smoking causes lung cancer and the discovery of the RASSF1 tumor suppressor gene. His lab has developed the MIRA assay, a technique for genome-scale DNA methylation profiling. Currently, the characterization of the novel modified DNA base 5-hydroxymethylcytosine is a major priority in the lab.
Alexander Tarakhovsky Professor, Rockefeller University Dr. Tarakhovsky received his medical degree from the Kiev Medical Institute in Ukraine in 1978 and his Ph.D. from the Institute for Oncology at the Academy of Science in Kiev in 1982. He has worked as a research associate at the Institute for Oncology, the All-Union Cancer Research Center in Moscow and the Institute for Molecular Genetics in Tallinn, Estonia. In 1990 he joined the Institute of Genetics at the University of Cologne as a postdoc; he was promoted to group leader in 1993 and tenured professor and head of the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signaling in 1995. He moved that lab to Rockefeller in 2000, when he was appointed Irene Diamond Associate Professor. He was named full professor in 2003.