Kathleen Collins is an American biophysicist and professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Her research considers

telomerase RNA Telomerase RNA component, also known as TR, TER or TERC, is an ncRNA found in eukaryotes that is a component of telomerase, the enzyme used to extend telomeres. TERC serves as a template for telomere replication (reverse transcription) by tel ...

structure and telomere function. In 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

Early life and education

Collins was a graduate student at the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...

Research and career

Collins joined the faculty at the

in 1995. Her research has considered the structure and function of the enzyme

telomerase Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most euka ...

Telomerase Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most euka ...

is a

reverse transcriptase A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, ...

that protects chromosomes by replacing the

telomere A telomere (; ) is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes. Although there are different architectures, telomeres, in a broad sense, are a widespread genetic feature mos ...

, a short section of DNA lost from the ends of chromosomes during

DNA replication In molecular biology, DNA replication is the biological process of producing two identical replicas of DNA from one original DNA molecule. DNA replication occurs in all living organisms acting as the most essential part for biological inheritanc ...

. It was first detected in the late 1970s by

Elizabeth Blackburn Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, (born 26 November 1948) is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is the former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Previously she was a biological researcher at the University of California, S ...

. The telomere prevents the chromosomes from fusing. Most cells turn off telomerase, restricting their proliferation, whilst cancer cells activate telomerase and encourage cell division. In 2018 Collins reported the most detailed image of the three-dimensional molecular structure of

, which offered hope for the design of drugs that can prevent cancer and ageing. Collins developed a scalpel-free approach to tumour biopsies. Cancer cells shed DNA into blood, DNA that can reveal mutations within the tumours that might make them resistant to treatment. The Collins approach samples small sections of DNA or

RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...

found in the blood, which can provide information about the presence of a tumour. This type of sampling can also tell whether or not a cancer has metastasised or whether it will respond to certain therapies. In 2017 she decided to spin this technology out into a company; KarnaTeq. In 2020 Collins was elected into the

References

External links

Faculty profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Kathleen Living people American biophysicists Women biophysicists University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 21st-century American women scientists 21st-century American physicists Yale University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Year of birth missing (living people)