Bernard G. Forget , MD Professor of Medicine and Genetics Section Chief WWW 403 Phone: 203-785-4144 Fax: 203-785-7232 e-mail: bernard.forget@yale.edu

M.D., McGill University, 1963
B.A., University of Montreal, 1959
Residency: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Fellowship: Harvard Medical School

Research Activities

Dr. Forget's laboratory is involved in a research program studying the regulation of gene expression in hematopoietic cells, with an emphasis on erythroid-specific gene expression. Work is devoted to: study of the transcriptional regulation of genes encoding red cell membrane skeleton proteins such as spectrin and ankyrin; study of the molecular basis of mutations of these genes that cause hereditary anemias; and study of differential gene expression in highly enriched primitive hematopoietic stem cells. The study of the regulation of tissue-specific gene expression and hematopoietic stem cell-specific gene expression is relevant to the elucidation of mechanisms responsible for abnormal gene expression in genetic and acquired disorders of blood cells, and to research directed at the purification and manipulation of reconstituting hematopoietic stem cells for the purposes of gene therapy.

Selected Recent Publications

1. Gallagher, P.G., Sabatino, D.E., Romana, M., Cline, A.P., Garrett, L.J., Bodine, D.M., and Forget, B.G. (1999). A human b-spectrin gene promoter directs high level expression in erythroid, but not muscle or neural cells. J. Biol. Chem. 274:6062-6073.
2. Gallagher, P.G., Romana, M., Tse, W.T., Lux, S.E., and Forget, B.G. (2000). The human ankyrin-1 gene is selectively transcribed in erythroid cells despite the presence of a housekeeping-like promoter. Blood 96:1136-1143.
3. Degar, B., Baskaran, N., Hulspas, R., Quesenberry, P., Weissman, S., and Forget, B.G. (2001). The homeodomain gene Pitx2 is expressed in primitive stem/progenitor cells but not in their differentiated progeny. Exp. Hemat. (In press).