Kansas City, Mo. (Feb. 12, 2007) – Tingting Yao, Ph.D., a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab of Investigators Joan Conaway, Ph.D., and Ron Conaway, Ph.D., has been named a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Special Fellow. The three-year appointment will begin on July 1, 2007, and will provide $180,000 over three years.

     “The Special Fellow award is a great honor for Dr. Yao,” said Dr. Joan Conaway. “She is a gifted researcher and a valuable member of our team. The recognition of Dr. Yao’s past research and her future promise by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is a well-deserved honor.”

     Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Special Fellows must have completed a minimum of two years of postdoctoral research training and continue to conduct their research under the direction of an approved research sponsor. The Special Fellowship is designed to permit the fellow to begin the transition to launching an independent research program.

     The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society funding will support Dr. Yao’s study of an enzyme called UCH37. UCH37 is a novel component of the Ino80 chromatin remodeling complex and has a potential role in epigenetic regulation. The ability to understand how epigenetic information regulates the accessibility of DNA to factors that control gene expression is essential to our understanding of many cancers.

     Dr. Yao received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 2002 from the University of Iowa, and a B.S. in Biochemistry in 1996 from Wuhan University. She joined the Conaway Lab in 2002.

About the Stowers Institute
     Housed in a 600,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility on a 10-acre campus in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research conducts basic research on fundamental processes of cellular life. Through its commitment to collaborative research and the use of cutting-edge technology, the Institute seeks more effective means of preventing and curing disease. The Institute was founded by Jim and Virginia Stowers, two cancer survivors who have created combined endowments of $2 billion in support of basic research of the highest quality.