 Jun Liu, Ph.D. "Jun Liu pursues the mystery of how genes are turned on and off. Using various statistical and computer techniques, he studies repetitive patterns in the DNA that lies between genes. This material contains instructions for regulating the expression of genes, and it is involved in whether the proteins produced by genes will become part of a brain or a big toe. These on/off switches can be found by doing difficult, time-consuming experiments that require copying and mutating genes. If a region close to a gene is mutated and the gene stops producing a certain protein, that region must be part of a genetic switch. Liu believes he can locate such switches by statistical analysis of the genetic sequence patterns that occur between the actual genes. Liu has done some of this work with collaborators at Harvard Medical School and the New York State Department of Health. For example, he has made about 2,000 predictions of where switches are located in the bacterium e-coli. In cases where these switches have actually been found by experiments, his predictions are 80 percent correct." ---the Harvard Gazette Harvard University Department of Statistics Science Center 702 1 Oxford Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617-496-1600 Fax: 617-496-8057 E-mail: jliu@stat.harvard.edu RESEARCH INTERESTS
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