He is also an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Prof. Cairns received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Lewis and Clark College in 1987, and then spent a year working in molecular parasitology with Scott Landfear at the Oregon Health Sciences University. In 1995, he received his PhD in Cell Biology from Stanford University, where he worked with Roger Kornberg on MAP kinase signaling and chromatin remodeling complexes. Prof. Cairns then worked with Fred Winston in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, where he pursued genetic and molecular analyses of chromatin remodeling. He joined the faculty at Utah in 1998, and HHMI in 2000. His laboratory utilizes biochemical, molecular, genetic and genomic approaches to understand how chromatin helps regulate gene expression. Back to top