Bradley Cairns, 43

Position » Professor of oncological sciences, started at the U. in 1998; adjunct professor of biochemistry; investigator, Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Honors » Jon and Karen Huntsman Presidential Professorship in Cancer Research; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Research interests » Investigates how chromatin structure regulates gene expression, a key issue in cell growth and cancer biology. He is exploring the possibility that the way genes are "packaged" affects their expression or can even silence them. "You have to work out how things normally work to understand how they are misregulated and how to fix them," Cairns says. "You have to understand how cells make decisions." Cairns has an interest in epigenetics, the study of changes in an organism's appearance caused by mechanisms other than the underlying DNA sequence. One of his findings shows that the father plays an active role in packaging his genome in ways that ensure a healthy baby. Conversely, men's poor health and lifestyle choices could hurt fertility and embryo development.