HCI's Vision High Risk Cancer Research Clinics Clinical Trials Our Cancer Investigators Graduate Studies Shared Resources Barbara Graves, Ph.D. Barbara Graves, Ph.D. Barbara Graves, Ph.D., investigator and program leader of the transcription group at Huntsman Cancer Institute, is professor and interim chair of the Department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah. A nationally respected molecular biologist, Graves focuses her research on how genes are turned on and off by regulatory proteins called transcription factors.
Transcription is the process by which genetic code information is passed from one cell to another.
This process is essential for normal cell behavior and often goes awry in a cancer cell. A graduate of Rice University, Graves earned her Ph.D. in developmental biology from the University of Washington and completed post-doctoral training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Carnegie Institute of Washington. She and her colleagues mapped and identified the proteins that regulate transcription during her post-doctoral training. Currently, she serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Biology and is a past member of the review panel in molecular biology for the National Institutes of Health. Outside of the laboratory, Graves enjoys hiking, gardening, and modern dance.