Dr. Kretzner’s current research focus is on the topic of DNA methylation, especially non-CG methylation. While the vast majority of human epigenetic research has concentrated on cytosine methylation in the simple sequence context CG, evidence increasingly suggests the same phenomenon in other contexts – such as CCa/tGG – will also prove to be biologically significant. Dr. Kretzner’s work in this area thus far has involved expression in human cells of the bacterial methyltransferase EcoRII (targeting CCa/tGG) and the analysis of these cells and their DNA.
During his first three years at City of Hope, Dr. Kretzner was primarily involved in studies of telomerase and telomerase activity in prostate cancer cells, other cell lines, and in expressed prostatic secretions (EPS). These studies included RT-PCR analysis of TERT (telomerase enzymatic protein) mRNA and human telomerase RNA (hTR), and of telomerase activity itself by means of TRAP assays. In addition to finishing and publishing some of his previous work (2, 3), Dr. Kretzner’s telomerase studies contributed to two publications from COH (4, 5) and also helped win an NIH R0-1 award to the Smith Laboratory and continues as co-investigator in these studies. This funding is for a continued basic science-clinical collaboration to develop better prostate cancer diagnostics by molecular analysis of EPS, looking at both telomerase levels as well as aberrant DNA methylation.
Dr. Kretzner earned his B.S. in Biology, cum laude, and a secondary teaching certificate from the University of Michigan. He taught high school biology for several years before going to graduate school at Brandeis University in the Boston area. He earned his Ph.D. there for studies identifying and characterizing one of the small nuclear RNA components of the pre-mRNA processing complexes in budding yeast. He did a post-doctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Robert Eisenman, Ph.D., elucidating the transcriptional activities of the Myc proto-oncogene family of transcription factors in mammalian cells. He continued this work as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Dakota School of Medicine in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It was during this time that he began to characterize the expression patterns of Myc family members in the mouse prostate gland (1), and developed an interest in the biology of human prostate cancer.
When not in the lab, Dr. Kretzner enjoys playing a wide variety of music on the guitar and mountain dulcimer, and hiking. He has two daughters and lives in Claremont, California.
This is an abbreviated document. Full CV available upon request. Information on this page may be self-reported and is subject to change at any time. Last updated: 10/08.
