Sharon Dent

Sharon Dent has made milestone contributions to understanding histone acetylation in gene regulation and cancer, particularly through her studies of the GCN5 histone acetyltransferase and the SAGA chromatin modification complex that revealed how acetylation of specific histone residues activates transcription of growth-promoting genes. Her laboratory demonstrated that GCN5-containing complexes are recruited to promoters by oncogenic transcription factors, directly linking histone acetylation to oncogene expression programs. She has shown that genetic disruption of histone acetyltransferase activity blocks tumor formation in mouse cancer models. Her work established the mechanistic framework for therapeutic targeting of histone acetylation writers in cancer.