Biography

Karen C. Glass, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology in the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Dr. Glass holds a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA and a Ph.D. in Microbiology & Molecular Genetics from the University of Vermont in 2005. Dr. Glass completed postdoctoral training in Pharmacology at the University of Colorado Denver with Dr. Tatiana Kutatelaze where she became interested in understanding how chromatin reader domains recognize post-translational modifications found on the histone proteins of the nucleosome. Dr. Glass served as an Associate Professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department at the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences prior to joining the Pharmacology Department at the University of Vermont College of Medicine in 2021. Dr. Glass is a member of the UVM Cancer Center, and has held an adjunct appointment in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine since 2011. Dr. Glass is invested in training the next generation of scientists, and is committed to providing STEM training opportunities for students/trainees from all backgrounds to apply cutting edge technology to address important biomedical questions in health and disease.

Dr. Glass’s research focuses on understanding how epigenetic signaling regulates gene expression, and how alterations in these pathways are involved in disease development, particularly cancer, heart, and infectious diseases. We are investigating the molecular mechanisms driving the recognition of histone post-translational modifications in order to identify new therapeutic strategies. The combinations of marks that make up the histone code have been difficult to decipher, and how multiple modifications modulate protein recognition is not well understood. The Glass lab aims to determine how physiologically abundant combinations of histone modifications regulate chromatin reader activity to influence disease progression. To address these research questions, a diversity of approaches in structural biology (nuclear magnetic resonance/X-ray crystallography, and cryo-electron microscopy), molecular biology, genomics, biochemistry, biophysics, and proteomics are applied.