Ali Shilatifard, PhD, chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, has been appointed to the senior editorial board of the scientific journal Science, published by the American Association for Advancement in Science (AAAS).
“I feel quite honored to be invited to join Science as a Senior Editorial Board member starting in 2015. Science is one of the oldest and most respected scientific journals published in the United States and is highly respected worldwide,” said Shilatifard, also the Robert Francis Furchgott Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. “In my position as a Senior Editorial Board member, I will be able to provide strategic advice and constructive feedback about the entire journal. I look forward to serving AAAS and the broader scientific community in my new role.”
Known for his work in molecular epigenetics, Shilatifard joined Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in September.
After discovering the function of the protein ELL within its macromolecular complex, the Super Elongation Complex (SEC), which is found in translocation with the MLL1 gene in childhood leukemia, Shilatifard’s laboratory has focused his research on understanding the molecular properties of the MLL complexes he named COMPASS. His lab demonstrated an important role for some of the COMPASS family members in the regulation of enhancer-promoter communications and has proposed a role for enhancer malfunction in cancer through mutations of the MLL genes. Shilatifard’s research is funded by three R01 grants funded by the National Institutes of Health.
He also serves as the Deputy Editor for Biomedical Research for Science Advances, a new AAAS Open Access Journal. Shilatifard is the editor for the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology and a member of the board of the reviewing editors for eLife. Shilatifard has also won the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology-AMGEN Award and the American Cancer Society Award of Excellence.