Developmental Biology

Jun Ma, PhD

Appointment

Professor of Pediatrics, Biomedical Informatics (primary) and Developmental Biology, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

Email

jun.ma@cchmc.org

Phone

513-636-7977

Fax

513-636-4317

Credentials

PhD: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1983-1988 (degree awarded 1990)

BS: Peking University, 1978-1982

Awards and Honors

Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, 1989-1992
William F. Milton Research Award, Harvard Medical School, 1989-1990
American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award, 1995-1998
Harvard Society of Fellows

Research

Molecular mechanisms of gene regulation and embryonic development

How are genes turned on and off in eukaryotes? How do gene activities control such complex biological processes as embryonic development? Answers to these important questions are fundamental in our effort to understand the human body and improve human health. Dr. Ma's laboratory is addressing these and other questions using the fruitfly Drosophila. They study both gene-specific activators such as the Drosophila morphogenetic protein Bicoid and co-factors that control transcription and chromatin structure. They take advantage of a combination of biochemical, structural, genetic, cellular, and mathematical approaches for their studies. Dr. Ma's lab is also interested in studying how human gene variants alter their biological and biochemical functions.

Research Grants and Contracts

National Institutes of Health: #1R01 GM072812, "Activities of the Bicoid gradient in Drosophila embryos"; 7/1/05-6/30/09; 25% effort; J. Ma, P.I.; Total direct cost $760,000

National Natural Science Foundation of China: #30428029, "Mechanisms of gene regulation and embryonic patterning"; 1/1/05-12/31/07; P.I., Ma, J.; co-P.I. (China), Jiao, R.; No PI salary; Total award amount: ¥ 400,000

Presentations

Bio2000 Lectures, Tsinghua and Peking Universities, Beijing, China, September 27, 28, 2007

Bio2000 Lectures, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China, September 24, 26, 2007

Graduate Institute of Neuroscience, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, July 2, 2007

Scientific Writing Workshop, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, June 29-July 1, 2007

Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, January 29, 2007

Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China, September 18, 2006

Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, September 12, 2006

Bio2000 Lectures, Tsinghua and Peking Universities, Beijing, China, September 7, 8, 2006

Bio2000 Lectures, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China, September 4, 6, 2006

Department of Biology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, September 22, 2005

Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, July 15, 2004

Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China, September 16, 2003

Genetics Ph.D. Program, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, March 10, 2003

College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China, September 25, 2003

Department of Cell Biology, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, January 4, 2001

Department of Pathology, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, November 29, 2001

Mark Ptashne's 60th Birthday Symposium on How Gene Regulation Works, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, November 10-12, 2000

Department of Microbiology, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, February 10, 1999

Program in Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, October 13, 1999

Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, October 19, 1999

Department of Biology, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, October 27, 1999

The Conference on Life Sciences for the Twenty First Century, Peking University, Beijing, China, May 5-6, 1998

Department of Biology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska, September 24, 1998

The First Midwest Symposium on Molecular Biology of Cell Regulation, Indianapolis, Indiana, February 22 and 23, 1997

Max-Planck Institute, Cologne, Germany, March 10, 1997

Department of Cell Growth, Differentiation, and Development, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, March 11, 1997

Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 8, 1997

Department of Molecular Biology, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, April 10, 1997

The 43rd Rachford Lectures Symposium on Transcriptional Control of Embryogenesis, Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 15-16, 1997

International Workshop on Advanced Medicinal Biotechnology, Beijing, China, October 7-9, 1997

Department of Biology, Peking University, Beijing, China, October 10, 1997

Department of Biology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, January 22, 1996

Scriptgen Pharmaceuticals, Medford, Massachusetts, December 9, 1996

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 10, 1996

New England Biolabs, Beverly, Massachusetts, September 31, 1995

Department of Biology, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, October 17, 1995

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, November 4, 1994

Midwest Yeast Club, University of Chicago, Illinois, November 6 and 7, 1993

Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology, University of Chicago, Illinois, November 8, 1993

Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, January 9, 1992

Baylor Medical School, Houston, Texas, January 27, 1992

University of Houston, Houston, Texas, January 29, 1992

Duke University College of Medicine, Duhram, North Carolina, February 19, 1992

Eleanor Rooselvelt Institute, Denver, Colorado, February 28, 1992

Children's Hospital Research Foundation, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 16, 1992

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penssylvania, March 19, 1992

National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, March 26, 1992

Beth Isreal Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, April 6, 1992

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas, April 20, 1992

Developmental Biology Seminar Series, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Ohio, November 10, 1992

Genetics and Development Seminar Series, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 2, 1990

Rockefeller University, New York, New York, June 19, 1990

New England Biolabs, Beverly, Massachusetts, June 28, 1990

Gunter Sachs Postdoctoral Winter Symposium, The Salk Institute, San Diego, California, January 11 and 12, 1989

Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, January 27, 1989

Life Sciences Meeting for CUSBEA, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 21, 1989

International Anniversary Congress on Prospects in Protein Engineering, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, August 14-18, 1989

Oxford University, Oxford, UK, September, 1989

Schering-Plough Corp., Newark, New Jersey, March 28, 1988

FASEB Summer Research Conference on Yeast RNA, Vermont Academy, Saxtons River, Vermont, June 12-17, 1988

Sandoz Inc., Basel, Switzerland , September 1, 1988

Institute of Genetics, University of Cologne, Germany, September 2, 1988

Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tubingen, Germany, September, 1988

Department of Biology, Peking University, Beijing, China, August, 1987

Genetics Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, August, 1987

Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Canada, July 27, 1987

Publications, Most Recent

Jun Ma's publications as listed by PubMed.

Earlier publications listed by PubMed.

Song Y, He F, XIe G, Guo X, Xu Y, Chen Y, Liang X, Stagljar I, Egli D, Ma J, Jiao R. CAF-1 is essential for Drosophila development and involved in the maintenance of epigenetic memory. Dev Biol. In Press, 2007.

Baird-Titus J, Clark-Baldwin K, Dave V, Caperelli CA, Ma J, Rance M. The solution structure of the native K50 Bicoid homeodomain to the consensus TAATCC DNA-binding site. J Mol Biol, 2006;356:1137-51.

Ma J. (Ed.) (2006). Gene Expression and Regulation, A Current Scientific Frontiers Book. Higher Education Press & Springer, Beijing-New York.

Ma J. (2006). Transcriptional activators and activation mechanisms. In: Gene Expression and Regulation (Ed. J Ma), pp 147-158, Higher Education Press & Springer, Beijing-New York.

Fu D, Ma J. Interplay between positive and negative activities that influence the role of Bicoid in transcription. Nucl Acids Res, 2005;33:3985-93.

Chaney BA, Clark-Baldwin K, Dave V, Ma J, Rance M. Solution structure of the K50 class homeodomain PITX2 bound to DNA and implications for mutations that cause Rieger syndrome. Biochemistry, 2005;44:7497-511.

Ma J. Crossing the line between activation and repression. Trends in Genetics, 2005;21:54-9.

Fu D, Wen Y, Ma J. The co-activator CREB-binding protein participates in enhancer-dependent activities of Bicoid. J Biol Chem, 2004;279:48725-33.

Ma J, Ptashne M. A new class of yeast transcriptional activators. Cell, 1987;51:113-9. Reprinted in part in: Cell, 2004;S116.

Ma J. Actively seeking activating sequences. Cell, 2004;S116:75-6.

Zhao C, Fu D, Dave V, Ma J. A composite motif of the Drosophila morphogenetic protein Bicoid critical to transcription control and pattern formation. J Biol Chem, 2003;278:43901-09.

Fu D, Zhao C, Ma J. Enhancer sequences influence the role of the amino terminal domain of Bicoid in transcription. Mol Cell Biol, 2003;23:4439-48.

Leung TC, Bischof J, Soll I, Niessing D, Zhang D, Ma J, Jackle H, Driever W. bozozok directly represses bmp2b transcription and mediates the earliest dorsoventral asymmetry of bmp2b expression in zebrafish. Development, 2003;130:3639-49.

Zeng X, Zhang D, Dorsey M, Ma J. Hypomutable regions of yeast TFIIB in a unigenic evolution test represent structural domains. Gene, 2003;309:49-56.

Zhao C, Dave V, Fu D, York A, Ma J. Insights into the molecular functions of the Drosophila morphogenetic protein Bicoid. Recent Res Devel Mol Cell Biol, 2003;4:115-26.

Zhang D, Carson DJ, Ma J. The role of TFIIB-RNA polymerase II interaction in start site selection in yeast cells. Nucl Acids Res, 2002;30:3078-85.

Zhao C, York A, Yang F, Forsthoefel DJ, Dave V, Fu D, Zhang D, Corado MS, Small S, Seeger MA, Ma J. The activity of the Drosophila morphogenetic protein Bicoid is inhibited by a domain located outside its homeodomain. Development, 2002;129:1669-80.

Zhao C, Dave V, Yang F, Scarborough T, Ma J. Target selectivity of Bicoid is dependent on non-consensus site recognition and protein-protein interaction. Mol Cell Biol, 2000;20:8112-23

Dave V, Zhao C, Yang F, Tung C-S, Ma J. Reprogrammable recognition codes in Bicoid homeodomain-DNA interaction. Mol Cell Biol, 2000;20:7673-84.

Zhang DY, Dorsey MJ, Voth WP, Carson DJ, Zeng X, Stillman DJ, Ma J. Intramolecular interaction of yeast TFIIB in transcription control. Nucl Acids Res, 2000;28:1913-20.

Ma J. (2000). Yeast transcriptional activation and the two-hybrid system. In: Yeast Hybrid Technologies. BioTechniques/Eaton Publishing. Eds. L Zhu and GJ Hannon. pp3-12.