Rachel Patton McCord, associate professor of biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology in University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s College of Arts and Sciences, researches human chromosome structure, how it changes in diseases like cancer and the premature aging disease Progeria, and the impact of radiation on cells and their DNA.
The valuable impact of this research has earned more than $3 million in funding support, including a recent Department of Energy award of $1 million for three years and a continued $2 million National Institutes of Health MIRA award.
“We have many different project areas looking at how chromosomes fold up inside the nucleus and are getting pushed into the wrong places by different stresses and diseases. That’s part of what’s going wrong in cancer cells, especially those that are metastasizing,” said McCord. “I’m interested in discovering what we can do to change the fate of the cancer cells and to understand why some cancers become more aggressive in the first place.”