William F. Dove
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Primary Section: 26, Genetics Secondary Section: 41, Medical Genetics, Hematology, and Oncology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1998)
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Research Interests
My scientific interests are centered on the replication and diversification of living form. The complementary disciplines of chemistry and genetics have partnered three phases of research that I have pursued with my colleagues: the control of DNA replication in lambda, a "simple" temperate virus of Escherichia coli; the regulation of synthesis and organization of the microtubular cytoskeleton during cellular replication and differentiation in the multipotential protist, Physarum polycephalum; and the network of genes regulating the balance between normal self-renewal and neoplastic development in the intestinal epithelium of the mouse. Each of these phases of research has required the development of new genetic strategies by which to pinpoint, with mutations, the genes that encode the molecules salient to the process of interest. Analysis of the action of these molecules has in each case illuminated a balance between short-range and long-range action in the orchestration of a multimolecular process. Progress in the disciplines of chemistry and genetics has enabled me to study biological problems of increasing complexity. Thus, the network of mammalian genes that impact the establishment, maintenance, and progression of intestinal neoplasms now can be analyzed with a power as satisfying as the study of bacteriophage lambda decades ago.
