User:Logophile59/sandbox/Marian Walhout

Marian Walhout is a systems biologist who investigates the structure, function and evolution of biological networks. She holds the Maroun Semaan Chair in Biomedical Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her research uses large-scale data sets and computational modeling to unravel regulatory networks involved in metabolism and development.

Career
Walhout is known for developing methods and resources for the systems biology community. She produced a public annotated compendium of regulatory transcription factors in C. elegans for use in mapping regulatory networks. She developed a novel “gene-centered” high-throughput one-hybrid assay to identify interactions between gene promoters and regulatory transcription factors in the C. elegans digestive tract, creating one of the first useful protein-DNA interaction networks and gaining significant insight into the mechanism of differential gene expression in C. elegans and introducing the idea of “master regulators” in the control of metazoan transcription. The ideas in this paper were foundational for our understanding of gene networks in metazoans, and the yeast one-hybrid method she developed has had considerable impact. She continues to use the gene-centered approach to gain insight into human disease (see for example Fuxman Bass et al. 2015 ). She has found that gastrointestinal microbiota may affect an organism's response to chemotherapeutic drugs, using C. elegans as a model system.

Awards

 * 2004–2006: Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research Scholar Award
 * 2007–2011: Ellison Medical Foundation Scholar in Aging Award
 * 2017: The Maroun Semaan Chair in Biomedical Research
 * 2018: Curriculum Development Award, UMass Medical School
 * 2018: Riccio Fund for Neuroscience Award
 * 2018: Senior Fellow, CIFAR