Dr. Zheng [HHMI Fellow] is taking an interdisciplinary approach to understand how transcription factors that regulate the transcription of DNA to RNA malfunction in human cancers. The B cell lymphoma/leukemia 11A (BCL11A) gene encodes a zinc-finger transcription factor, which plays a critical role in silencing fetal globin expression in the fetal-to-adult switch in red blood cells and is implicated in cancer. Dr. Zheng aims to develop novel approaches to interfere with BCL11A function, which will provide a general strategy to manipulate transcription factors as molecular targets for therapeutic benefit.