BHSI Director Harry Dailey co-authors Nature study
BHSI Director Harry Dailey is one of a group of scientists at the University of Georgia, Harvard Medical School and the University of Utah who have discovered a new gene that regulates heme synthesis in red blood cell formation. Heme is the deep-red, iron containing component of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells responsible for transporting oxygen in the blood.
The study was published online Nov. 7 and will be in the Nov. 22 print edition of the journal Nature. The findings promise to advance the biomedical community’s understanding and treatment of human anemias and mitochondrial diseases, both known and unknown.
The gene—known as mitochondrial ATPase inhibitory factor-1 gene or Atpif1—was uncovered from a chemical mutagenesis screen of zebrafish, an organism which shares many of the same genes that regulate blood development in humans.
Read more about it at UGA Today.