Diversity in Life Sciences

Dr. Whitson received his B.S. in Biology at California State University Chico. In his Ph.D. studies at the University of Colorado Denver, he identified anti-tumor signaling events occurring downstream of vitamin D. His work discovered that the TGFβ family protein, GDF-15, suppresses angiogenesis by inhibiting the pro-angiogenic role of connective tissue growth factor. He received several awards including the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Fellowship. His postdoctoral work at Stanford University uncovered resistance mechanisms involved in tumor resistance in skin cancer. He identified a role for serum response factor and myocardin-related transcription factors in tumor resistance and initiated a drug development effort to target these factors. As an investigator at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, Dr. Whitson is involved in efforts to characterize transcription factor complexes to identify entry points for drug discovery. Current efforts employ functional genomics, proteomics and structural biology to gain a better understanding of oncogenic transcription factor complexes.