Giulia KennedyPhD
UCSFChapter 01 · Strand A · Institution

Education and training

A B.S. in Applied Science from Youngstown State, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve, and postdoctoral training at UCSF, where her earliest papers traced how the insulin gene is switched on (1980s–early 1990s).

1992 – 1995B.S. APPLIED SCIENCE; PH.D. BIOCHEMISTRY; POSTDOCTORAL TRAINING IN BIOCHEMISTRYUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Overview

Giulia Kennedy’s training runs from Ohio to San Francisco. She holds a B.S. in Applied Science from Youngstown State University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and completed postdoctoral training in the Biochemistry Department and Hormone Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.1 Company biographies repeat the same three institutions,23 and a financial-data profile lists them as well.4 No source gives the year of any degree, so this chapter is dated by her earliest published work.

Research

Her first indexed papers concern a question that would return in a different form at Millennium: how the insulin gene is switched on. In December 1992 she and W. J. Rutter reported in PNAS a zinc-finger protein they named Pur-1, for purine binding. Pur-1 binds the GAGA boxes of the rat insulin I and II genes and the human islet amyloid polypeptide gene, and it is a potent transactivator in both pancreatic and non-pancreatic cells, able to activate an intact insulin promoter in HeLa cells, where that promoter is normally silent.5

In 1995 Kennedy, German and Rutter published “The minisatellite in the diabetes susceptibility locus IDDM2 regulates insulin transcription” in Nature Genetics. The paper showed that the insulin-linked polymorphic region can transduce a transcriptional signal in pancreatic beta cells, and that a long allele has greater activity than a short one, a finding still cited in the OMIM entry for type 1 diabetes susceptibility.6 The same year she was one of nineteen authors of a consensus letter in Diabetes proposing a simplified nomenclature for insulin gene promoter elements.7

What is not known

The retrieved records do not state her affiliation on these papers or name a postdoctoral mentor; the papers are placed here because their dates and co-authors are consistent with the UCSF training named in her biographies. Dissertation, advisor and graduation years remain open questions.

From the record

Facts

  • Holds a B.S. in Applied Science from Youngstown State University.14
  • Earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.124
  • Completed postdoctoral training in the Biochemistry Department and Hormone Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.123
  • First author, with W. J. Rutter, of a December 1992 PNAS paper describing Pur-1, a zinc-finger protein that binds the GAGA boxes of the rat insulin I and II genes and transactivates an insulin promoter in cells where it is normally inactive.5
  • First author of the 1995 Nature Genetics paper "The minisatellite in the diabetes susceptibility locus IDDM2 regulates insulin transcription" (Kennedy, German and Rutter, Nature Genetics 9, 293–298), which showed that the insulin-linked polymorphic region transduces a transcriptional signal in pancreatic beta cells, with long alleles more active than short ones.6
  • Co-author (as G. Kennedy) of the 1995 consensus letter "The insulin gene promoter: A simplified nomenclature" in Diabetes 44(8), 1002–1004, with M. German, W. J. Rutter and sixteen others.7

Research

  • Gene regulation and gene discovery

    1992 – 1999

    Kennedy's first research programme ran from insulin gene transcription to disease gene discovery. As a postdoctoral scientist in William J. Rutter's laboratory at UCSF she identified Pur-1, a zinc-finger transactivator of the insulin promoter (PNAS, 1992), and showed that the minisatellite at the type 1 diabetes locus IDDM2 regulates insulin transcription (Nature Genetics, 1995). At Millennium Pharmaceuticals she implemented genomic and genetic approaches to uncover diabetes susceptibility genes, and at Chiron Corporation she led colon and breast cancer gene discovery efforts that identified oncology markers for therapeutic drug development.

Publications