Jane Johnson

Jane Johnson demonstrated that the Hedgehog-responsive transcription factor ATOH1 is essential for medulloblastoma cancer stem cell maintenance, and that ATOH1 deletion eliminates tumor-propagating cells while sparing normal cerebellar neurons, identifying a cancer stem cell-specific vulnerability. Her work on basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor networks in neural development revealed how Hedgehog and Notch pathways converge on shared transcriptional programs co-opted by brain tumor stem cells. She has identified chromatin accessibility differences between cancer stem cells and bulk tumor cells that reveal stem cell-specific therapeutic targets in Hedgehog-driven cancers.