P53

This volume, p53, was developed primarily as a resource for access to key ideas in the field that have developed over the years including how transgenics have been used to study p53, how clinical genetics have identified and studied mutations in p53 found in human cancers, how p53 can be regulated by post-translational modification, and how key drug targets have been defined, namely MDM2, which has provided fundamental approaches for defining how p53 can be activated with potentially therapeutic effect. The key concepts in the chapters included provide a perspective on key paradigms in the p53 field.

AYEDA AYED is on leave from the Ontario Cancer Institute at the University of Toronto where she worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate Scientist on structural aspects of p53 using nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. She was the recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Leukemia Research and a National Cancer Institute Fellowship. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.THEODORE HUPP was trained in Chemistry as an undergraduate at Bowling Green State University in Ohio working with Bill Scovell and applied developing interests in life sciences towards a PhD degree at Michigan State University under the mentorship of Jon Kaguni. Interests in enzymology was applied to the cancer field working with Sir David Lane during the time when the p53 field was discovering key p53-inducible genes like p21, transgenic technologies showed the key role of p53 as a tumor suppressor, and the p53 protein was found to amenable to activation by post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation, ubiquitination, peptide ligands, or small molecules. The Hupp lab is now based at the University of Edinburgh (UK) funded by the Cancer Research UK charity, where enthusiastic students and colleagues continue to study fundamental enzymological aspects of p53 control by ubiquitination, acetylation, and phosphorylation with the hope of developing novel therapeutics for activating the p53 pathway in human cancers.