Congratulations to Dr Ng Li Mei, Research Fellow from Teh Bin Tean’s group! Li Mei clinched the Best Poster Award after presenting her research work at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) 4th International Conference on Retinoids. This conference was held from 10-15 June 2018 in Colorado, USA.

This conference is the sole major national and international conference that addresses the broad spectrum of retinoid actions and application in an integrative manner. Attendees of the conference were able to share and learn more about retinoids research, including the basic biology of retinoid signalling as well as applications in diseases (such as metabolic diseases and cancers) and therapeutics development.

The overall goal of this conference was to bring together a group of committed investigators (senior scientists, mid-career scientists, junior scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students), who work in diverse disciplines to present and discuss their latest research findings that share a common focus on the retinoids.

Congratulations Li Mei!

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Characterizations of retinoic acid receptor alpha mutations associated with breast fibroepithelial tumors and retinoic acid-resistant acute promyelocytic leukemia

There is increasing evidence of the implication of RAR? in human diseases. Besides the classic PML-RAR? fusion in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), point mutations in RAR? ligand binding domain (LBD) of PML-RAR? have been associated with retinoic acid (RA)-resistant APL relapse. Recently, we reported similar RAR? LBD point mutations in breast fibroepithelial tumors (Tan et al., Nature Genet., 2015), indicating an emerging role of RAR? aberration in tumorigenesis that currently lacks understanding. We therefore probed the functional mechanisms of a range of clinically-associated RAR? LBD mutations by extensive biochemical analyses. Our data revealed a number of differential properties, including transcriptional activities, ligand binding and coregulator interactions, displayed by mutant RAR? compared the wild type receptor. Current work is ongoing to identify the structural mechanisms underlying these differential properties. These results provided insights into the emerging role of RAR? mutations in tumorigenesis and indications for developing RAR? mutant-specific ligands.