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Tammy Morrish, Ph.D.

Tammy Morrish, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Biochemistry and Cancer Biology
tammy.morrish@utoledo.edu

RESEARCH INTERESTS

The unlimited growth potential of tumors relies on telomere maintenance. Typically telomere

maintenance depends on telomerase, however, some tumors lack telomerase. Approximately 10% of

tumors have been found to lack telomerase, and most of these tumors are sarcomas or neuronal cell

derived tumors. Without telomerase, telomeres are instead maintained by recombination-based

mechanisms. The focus of my laboratory involves understanding how recombination-based

mechanisms contribute to telomere maintenance particularly in tumors and primary cells lacking

telomerase. Currently we are using a B-cell lymphoma mouse model, Eμmyc+ mTR-/-, which lacks

telomerase (mTR-/-). We are interested in determining how repetitive sequences contribute to

recombination within the subtelomere and whether the integration of retrotransposons into the

subtelomere contributes to the process of telomere maintenance in tumors or some primary cells that

lack telomerase. These studies involve the use of microarrays and sequence-based approaches to

examine changes in copy number sequences within the subtelomeric regions. Using these assays

combined with lentiviral-based studies we can evaluate how different DNA repair genes/pathways

impact subtelomere recombination.

Member of the Graduate Faculty Council & the Mentoring Faculty for the Biomedical Sciences

Graduate Program, Cancer Biology Track.

EDUCATION

B.A., Biochemistry, 1995, University of Texas @ Austin

Ph.D., Human Genetics, 2005, University of Michigan

APPOINTMENTS

2012-present, Assistant Professor, Biochemistry & Cancer Biology, University of Toledo

2011-2012, Research Associate, Molecular Biology & Genetics, Johns Hopkins University

2005-2011, Postdoctoral Fellow, Molecular Biology & Genetics, Johns Hopkins University

1995-1998, Research Assistant, Cellular & Structural Biology & Institute of Biotechnology, University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio

PUBLICATIONS

Kopera H, Moldovan J, Morrish TA, Garcia-Perez J, Moran J. Similarities between LINE-1 reverse transcriptase and telomerase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (2011) Dec20;108(51):20345-50.

Morrish TA and Greider C. Short telomeres initiate telomere recombination in primary and tumor cells. PLoS Genetics. 2009 January;5(1) e1000357.

Morrish TA,Garcia-Perez JL, Stamato TD, Taccioli GE, Sekiguchi J, Moran JV. Endonucleaseindependent LINE-1 retrotransposition at mammalian telomeres. Nature. 2007 March 8;446(7132):208-12.

Muzny DM, et al. The DNA sequence, annotation, and analysis of human chromosome 3. Nature (2006)440, 1194-1198.

Gilbert N, Lutz-Prigge S, Morrish TA, and Moran JV. Multiple fates of L1 retrotransposition intermediates in cultured human cells. Molecular and Cellular Biology (2005) September 25(17):7780-95.

Zingler N, Willhoeft U, Brose HP, Schoder V, Jahns T, Hanschmann KM, Morrish TA, Lower J, Schumann GG. Analysis of 5' junctions of human LINE-1 and Alu retrotransposons suggests an alternative model for 5'-end attachment requiring microhomology-mediated end-joining. Genome Research (2005) June;15(6):780-9.

Athanikar JN, Morrish TA, Moran J. Of man in mice. Nature Genetics (2002) December; 32(4)562-3.

Morrish TA, Gilbert N, Myers JS, Vincent BJ, Stamato TD, Taccioli GE, Batzer MA, Moran JV. DNA repair mediated by endonuclease-independent LINE-1 retrotransposition. Nature Genetics (2002) June;31(2) 159-165.

Myers JS, Vincent BJ, Udall H, Watkins WS, Morrish TA, Kilroy GE, Swergold GD, Henke J, Henke L, Moran JV, Jorde LB, Batzer MA. A Comprehensive Analysis of Recently Integrated Human Ta L1 Elements. American Journal of Human Genetics (2002) August; 71(2):312-326.

Hlaing T, Guo RF, Dilley KA, Loussia JM, Morrish TA, Shi MM, Vincenz C, Ward PA. Molecular cloning and characterization of DEFCAP-L and -S, two isoforms of a novel member of the mammalian Ced-4 family of apoptosis proteins. Journal of Biological Chemistry. (2001) March 23;276(12):9230-8.

Wei W, Morrish TA, Alisch RS, Moran JV. A transient assay reveals that cultured human cells can accommodate multiple LINE-1 retrotransposition events. Analytical Biochemistry (2000) September 10;284(2):435-8.

Bounpheng MA, Morrish TA, Dodds SG, Christy BA. Negative regulation of selected bHLH proteins by eHAND. Experimental Cell Research (2000) June 15;257(2):320-31.

Trask BJ, Friedman C, Martin-Gallardo A, Rowen L, Akinbami C, Blankenship J, Collins C, Giorgi D, Iadonato S, Johnson F, Kuo WL, Massa H, Morrish T, Naylor S, Nguyen OT, Rouquier S, Smith T, Wong DJ, Youngblom J, van den Engh G. Members of the olfactory receptor gene family are contained in large blocks of DNA duplicated polymorphically near the ends of human chromosomes. Human Molecular Genetics (1998) January;7(1):13-26.

BOOK CHAPTER

Moran J, Morrish TA. (2005 & 2001) “Chromosomes: noncoding DNA (including satellite DNA)” Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Nature Publishing Group.

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