John Schimenti
Professor of Genetics
Director, Center for Vertebrate Genomics

Phone

607-253-3636

Address

Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics
Department of Biomedical Sciences
T9014A Vet Research Tower
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-2703

Email

Web Sites

Department Profile

Department Profile

Background

John Schimenti is the James Law Professor of Genetics with a primary appointment in the Dept. of Biomedical Sciences and a joint appointment in the Dept. of Molecular Biology and Genetics. He also serves as Director of the Center for Vertebrate Genomics at Cornell. He received a B.A. from Rutgers College with majors in English and Biological Sciences in 1981, and his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the University of Cincinnati in 1985. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Lee Silver at Princeton studying mouse genetics, he was a professor at became an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Genetics at Case Western Reserve Univ. in 1987. There, he received the Searle Scholars Award, a Basil O’Connor award from the March of Dimes, and was named a Presidential Young Investigator by the National Science Foundation. In 1992, he moved to The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he was a Senior Staff Scientist before relocating to Cornell in 2004. Dr. Schimenti was recently named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Research Description

The Schimenti lab uses the mouse as a model to investigate the genetics of mammalian development, gametogenesis, and maintenance of genome integrity. In particular, his group studies the role of genes affecting DNA repair or replication, and how mutations of these genes predispose to cancer. Another major project in his lab concerns the genetics of chromosome recombination and segregation in meiosis. Recent work has concentrated on checkpoint mechanisms that protect against chromosome aberrations and birth defects in offspring.

Selected Publications

Shima, N., Alcaraz, A., Liachko, I., Buske, T., Andrews, C., Munroe, R., Hartford, S., Tye, B., and Schimenti, J. (2007) A viable mutation of Mcm4 causes genomic instability and mammary adenocarcinoma in mice. Nature Genetics 19: 93-98.

Bannister, L., Pezza, R., Donaldson, J., de Rooij, D., Schimenti, K., Camerini-Otero, D. and Schimenti, J. (2007) Male-specific sterility in mice carrying a dominant, recombination-defective allele of the RecA homolog Dmc1. PLoS Biology 5:e105.

Li, X. and Schimenti, J. Mouse Pachytene Checkpoint 2 (Trip13) is required for completing meiotic recombination but not synapsis. (2007) PLoS Genetics 3:e130.

Ward, J., Reinholdt, L., Motley, W., Niswander, L., Deacon, D., Griffin, L., Langlais, K., Backus, V., Schimenti, K., O’Brien, M., Eppig, J. and Schimenti, J. (2007) Mutation in mouse Hei10, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, disrupts meiotic crossing-over. PloS Genetics 3: e139.

Philipps, D., Wigglesworth, K., Hartford, S., Sun, F., Pattabiraman, S., Schimenti, K., Handel, M.A., Eppig, J.J. and Schimenti, J. (2008) The dual bromodomain and WD repeat-containing mouse protein BRWD1 is required for normal spermiogenesis and the oocyte-embryo transition. Devel Biol 317:72-82.

Mu, W., Munroe, R., Barker, A. and Schimenti, J. PDCD2 is essential for preimplantation mouse development and embryonic stem cell maintenance. Devel. Biol. in press.

Mihola, O., Trachtulec, Z., Vicek, C., Schimenti, J. and Forejt, J. (2009) A mouse speciation gene encodes a meiotic H3 methyltransferase. Science 323:373-375.

Chuang, C., Wallace, M., Abratte, C., Southard, T. and Schimenti, J. (2010) Incremental genetic perturbations to MCM2-7 expression and subcellular distribution reveal exquisite sensitivity of mice to DNA replication stress. PLoS Genetics, 6(9):e1001110.

Click here to for Dr. Schimenti's PubMed listings.