Eric N. Olson
Life
Olson grew up in North Carolina. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1977 in chemistry and biology at Wake Forest University in Winston- Salem, North Carolina in 1981 and a PhD in Biochemistry at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University. His dissertation was entitled Biochemical alterations in skeletal muscle membranes falling on the development of diabetes. As a postdoctoral fellow he worked with Luis Glaser at Washington University School of Medicine. Then Olson became a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (1984 Assistant Professor, Associate Professor in 1989, full professor in 1991 ) at MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas at Houston. Since 1995, he holds professorships at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, first of Molecular Biology, since 1999 also of Cardiovascular Medicine, since 2005, in addition to stem cell biology, since 2006, in addition to congenital heart defects.
Work
Olson was at the interface between basic research and clinical medicine important contributions to the understanding of development ( ontogeny ) and disorders of the cardiovascular system.
Olson was able to contribute with biochemical, genetic and molecular biological methods for reconnaissance, as organized in multicellular organisms determination and differentiation of tissues. To this end, he delivered a very fitting description, as in fruit flies and laboratory mice transcription factors control the organogenesis of skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle. Among the transcription factors discovered by him include MEF -2 ( differentiation of all muscle cells), Myocardin ( vascular smooth muscle ) and Hand1 and Hand2 ( formation of the cardiac chambers ). Olson was able to show that altered calcium signals - mediated by calcineurin and histone deacetylases - hypertrophy of the heart and ultimately lead to heart failure. Olson saw a group of stress-induced microRNAs that myocyte growth, fibrosis and angiogenesis in the damaged heart regulate. He discovered that lie within the introns of the gene for the heavy chain of myosin microRNAs that control the contractility of the heart.