Office of Public Affairs
Columbia University
New York, N.Y.   10027
(212) 854-5573

Bob Nelson, Senior Science Writer
FOR USE UPON RECEIPT, November 1, 1996

Columbia Biologist Wins $2 Million NIH Grant
to Study How Genes Tell Cells What To Do

James L. Manley, Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Life Sciences and chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, has been awarded a major grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how genes tell cells what they will become and how they will function.

The grant, called a Merit Award, is worth about $400,000 annually for a period of five years and is renewable for another five years. Merit Awards were established by NIH "to provide long-term grant support to investigators of proven research competency and productivity" and are made after review by the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council.

In his research project, "Mechanisms of Alternative Splicing of Pre-mRNA," Dr. Manley hopes to identify proteins in cells that are responsible for cutting and reassembling strands of RNA that then tell a cell what it will be and how it will work. As cells grow and divide, the DNA in cell nuclei is copied into RNA by an enzyme called RNA polymerase. Large complexes of protein and RNA, called spliceosomes, then process the RNA to form messenger RNA, or mRNA, which is exported from the nucleus to the cell's cytoplasm. There, cellular organelles called ribosomes translate the RNA into proteins that tell the cell what to do and how to function.

This basic research in differential gene expression goes to the heart of how one cell becomes a blood cell and another a muscle cell, Professor Manley said. The work will help scientists understand how certain genetic diseases, such as blood diseases and some cancers, originate and are propagated within the body, though probably not for years to come. "We're only starting to learn about RNA splicing within the body," he said.

Professor Manley received the B.S. in biology from Columbia in 1971 and the Ph.D. in molecular biology from SUNY at Stony Brook in 1976. After conducting research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty at Columbia in 1980. Professor Manley was named chairman and Levi Professor in 1995. He is the author or co-author of nearly 150 articles in scientific journals and is a member of the editorial boards of a number of biology journals. His work is also supported by two additional NIH grants awarded to study other aspects of gene function.

11.1.96
18,980