Nathan Ellis, PhD
Dr. Ellis trained at the University of Washington, investigating DNA methylation in X-chromosome inactivation, and at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) in London, characterizing the sex-determining region of the Y chromosome. In 1990, he joined the New York Blood Center where, with James German and Joanna Groden, he identified the gene mutated in Bloom’s syndrome, BLM, and since that time he has characterized BLM’s molecular genetics and analyzed how SUMO modification regulates BLM function during replication stress. In 1997, Ellis took a position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he began investigations of the genetic epidemiology of colorectal cancer. He continued this work at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a focus on health disparities in African American colorectal cancer. Ellis joined the University of Arizona in 2014.
Cancer Focus
Ellis is analyzing epigenetic changes underlying early-onset colorectal cancers in African Americans and determining the molecular mechanisms that distinguish cancer development through pathways that initiate tumor development with and without somatic mutation in the tumor suppressor APC.