Richard Gaber, PhD

Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Research Interests:
Molecular/Genetic dissection of the Hsp90 molecular chaperone pathway.
Richard Gaber’s laboratory has used genetic approaches to identify several new components of the Hsp90 molecular chaperone machinery using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. One of these new factors, Cns1, is the first co-chaperone shown to be essential for life. Dr. Gaber is pursuing the details of its function in vivo through the isolation and genetic analysis of mutations that suppress the effects of certain mutant alleles of CNS1.Molecular/Genetic analysis of signal transduction pathways in yeast.
Through genetic approaches, his group has discovered that one of the glucose transporter genes in S. cereviaise, HXT6, is under transcriptional regulation by two distinct signal transduction pathways. In one, the presence of glucose in the growth medium is detected by Snf3, a glucose sensor, which results in the repression of transcription of the HXT6 gene. Surprisingly, hyperosmotic stress also results in transcriptional repression of HXT6. Both signal transduction pathways repress HXT6 independently yet both require the Mot3 DNA-binding protein. They are currently working to understand precisely how these two pathways regulate transcription of this target gene.