Nancy Hopkins

I worked in three areas of research. In graduate school I studied regulation of gene expression in phage lambda. As a faculty member I identified genes that play important roles in the growth, host range, and disease-causing properties of mouse leukemia viruses. Most recently my lab has identified genes essential for early vertebrate development: we first developed a method of insertional mutagenesis for the zebrafish then used it to identify about 25% of the embryonic essential genes of the fish. Human counterparts of some of these genes are known to be involved in cystic kidney disease or cancer.