OBJECTIVE:
To seek a position as a molecular biologist in a challenging, multidisciplinary environment in a R&D team of a major biotechnology/pharmaceutical company.

EMPLOYMENTS:
-Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (1997-present). Henry M. Jackson Foundation, USA.
-Postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, NICHD, Laboratory of Molecular Growth Regulation: (1992-1997). Fogarty International Foundation, USA.

PROJECTS CONDUCTED AT THE PRESENT:
(1) Elucidating the role of Interferon Regulatory Factors (IRFs) in the regulation of the cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2).
(2) Studying a human case of Endotoxin/IL-1 hyporesponsiveness from the genetic point of view (see The Journal of Immunology. 158, pp. 3959, 1997).
(3) Analyzing the production of several cytokines in IRF(s) deficient mice.
(4) Dissecting the function of different histone acetylases in gene regulation by vitamin A and IFN-gamma.
(5) Cloning of nuclear hormone receptor interacting proteins.
(6) Evaluating the effect of natural ceramides in the macrophage activation.
(7) Screening for taxol binding proteins in the macrophage membrane.

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING:
- Isolation, culturing and purification of immune cells, FACS analysis, positive or negative selection methods and analysis of the production of several cytokines.
- Immunoprecipitation, in vivo and in vitro kinase, phosphatase and acetylase assays.
- Biochemical purification of protein and their immunological or functional detection.
- Library construction and screening, isolation of nucleic acids from different sources, cloning and subcloning techniques.
- Construction of eukaryotic reporters, transient and stable transfections.
- Automatic sequencing, PCR, RT-PCR techniques.
- Proficiency in the use of major molecular biology databases for general searching, sequence alignment, sequence similarity, protein structure modeling and transcription factors binding site analysis.
- Protein-protein and protein-DNA interaction studies by using GST-binding assays, flag-tagged proteins, coimmunoprecipitation, yeast two-hybrid system, EMSA, DNA-immobilized beads and footprinting.
- Expression and purification of recombinant proteins in bacteria or eukaryotic systems.

AWARDS AND HONORS:
- Milstein Young Investigator Award, 1999. International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research (ISICR), Paris, France 1999. "Interferon-g activates Cox-2 gene through members of the Interferon Regulatory Family of Transcription factors (IRFs)". Jorge Blanco.
- Gordon Conference Poster Award, Gordon Conference about Hormone Action, September 1997. Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, New Hampshire. "The histone acetylase PCAF is a nuclear receptor coactivator". Jorge Blanco.
- The NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence, 1997. National Institutes of Health, USA. "Retinoic acid receptor heterodimer recruits histone acetylases in the presence of ligand". Jorge Blanco
- Dr. Juan Bonorino Cuenca Award, 1995. Argentine National Academy of Medicine. Direct diagnosis of active Toxoplasmosis in high risk patients". Blanco, J., Matrajt, M., Angel, S., Margarit, J., Pszenny, V., Illecas, E., Garberi, J.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS:
1. Garberi, J., Blanco, J., Angel, S., Pszenny, V., Arakelian, C. and Pastini, A. Toxoplasma gondii: A rapid method for the isolation of pure tachyzoites. Preliminary characterization of its genome. Mem. Inst. Oswaldo. Cruz 85 (4), 429-434, 1990.

2. Angel, S., Blanco, J., Romano, L., Maero, E. and Garberi, J. Técnicas de hibridización de ADN para la detección de Toxoplasma gondii. Medicina (Buenos Aires) 51 (2) , 18, 1991.

3. Angel, S., Pastini, A., Pszenny, V., Blanco, J., Romano, L., Hass, E. and Garberi, J. Anticuerpos Monoclonales contra Toxoplasma gondii: Su utilidad en el diagnóstico histopatológico de la toxoplasmosis. Medicina (Buenos Aires) 51(3), 283-284, 1991.

4. Angel, S., Blanco, J., Maero, E., Pzsenny, V. and Garberi, J. Repetitive DNA sequences of Toxoplasma gondii for development of diagnostic probes. Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz 86 (4) , 483-484, 1991.

5. Blanco, J., Angel, S., Maero, E., Pszenny, V., Serpente, P. and Garberi, J. Cloning of DNA repetitive sequences from Toxoplasma gondii and its usefulness for parasite detection. Am. J. of Trop. Med. and Hyg. 46 (3) 350-7, 1992.

6. Angel, S., Maero, E., Blanco, J., Pzsenny, V., Zala, C., Gonzalez, R., Perelmulter, H. and Garberi, J. Early Diagnosis of Toxoplasmic Encephalitis in AIDS Patients by dot blot Hybridization Analysis. J. Clinical. Microbiology 30 (12) 3286-3287, 1992.

7. Segars, J., Nagata, T., Bours, V., Medin, J., Frandozo, G., Blanco, J., Drew, P., Becker, K., An, J., Tang, T., Stephany, D., Neel, B., Siebenlist, U., Ozato, K. Retinoic acid induction of major histocompatibility complex class I genes in NTera-2 embryonal carcinoma cells involves induction of NF-kB (p50-p65) and retinoic acid receptor ß-retinoid X receptor ß heterodimer. Molecular and Cellular Biology 13, 6157-6169, 1993.

8. Rosenzvit, M., Angel, S., Alvarez, L., Mellare, V., Blanco, J., Pszenny, V., Garberi, J.C. A simple and economic slide micro-immunoenzymatic (micro-SIA) test for epidemiological studies of toxoplasmosis. Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz 89 (1), 47-51, 1994.

9. Leng, X., Blanco, J., Tsai, S., Ozato, K., O'Malley, B., Tsai, M-J. Mechanisms for synergistic activation of thyroid hormone receptor and retinoid X receptor on different response elements. Journal of Biological Chemistry 269 (50), 31436-31442, 1994.

10. Blanco, J. C. G., Wang, I-M., Tsai, S. Y., Tsai, M-J., O'Malley, B. W., Jurutka, P. W., Haussler, M. R. and Ozato, K. TFIIB and the vitamin D receptor cooperatively activate ligand dependent transcription. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 92, 1535-1539, 1995.

11. Leng, X., Blanco, J., Tsai, S., Ozato, K., O'Malley, B., Tsai, M-J. Mouse retinoid X receptor contains a separable ligand binding and transactivation domain in its E region. Molecular and Cellular Biology 15(1) 255-263, 1995.

12. Leong, G. M., Blanco, J. C. G., Rolfes, R., Marton, M., Wang, K., Wang, I-M., Moehle, C., Tan, A., Ozato, K. and Segars, J. Examination of the interaction between the Retinoid X Receptor and the general transcription factor IIB (TFIIB) in the dual hybrid system. In "Future Trends in Endocrinology": Eds. De Bellis A, Schipani E. 14: 155-162. Serono Symposia Publications., 1995.

13. Blanco, J. C. G., Dey, A., Leid, M., Minucci, S., Park, B-K., Jurutka, P., Haussler, M. R., Ozato, K. Inhibition of ligand induced promoter occupancy in vivo by a dominant negative RXR. Gene to Cell 1 , 209-221, 1996.

14. Wang, I-M., Blanco, J. C. G., Tsai, S-Y., Tsai, M-J., Ozato, K. Interferon Regulatory Factors and TFIIB cooperatively regulate interferon-responsive promoter activity in vivo and in vitro. Molecular and Cellular Biology 16(11), 6313-6324, 1996.

15. Sunaga, S., Maki, K., Lagasse, E., Blanco, J. C. G., Ozato, K., Miyazaki, J., and Ikuta, K. Myeloid differentiation is impaired in transgenic mice with targeted expression of a dominant negative form of retinoid X receptor b. British J. Haematology 96, 19-30, 1997.

16. Jurutka, P. W., Hsieh, J-C., Remus, L.S., Whitfield, G. K., Thompson, P.D., Haussler, C. A., Blanco, J. C. G., Ozato, K. and Haussler, M. R. Mutations in the 1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 receptor identifying C-terminal amino acids required for transcriptional activation that are functionally dissociated from hormone binding, heterodimeric DNA binding, and interaction with basal transcription factor IIB, in vitro. Journal of Biological Chemistry 272(23), 14592-14599, 1997.

17. Leong, G. M., Wang, K. S., Marton, M. J., Blanco, J. C. G., Wang, I-M., Rolfes, R. J., Ozato, K. and Segars, J. H. Interaction between the retinoid X receptor and transcription factor IIB is ligand-dependent in vivo. Journal of Biological Chemistry 273(4), 2296-2305, 1998.

18. Minucci, S., Wong, J., Blanco, J. C. G., Shi, Y-B., Wolffe, A. P. and Ozato, K. Retinoid Receptor-induced alteration of chromatin assembled on a ligand-responsive promoter in Xenopus oocytes. Molecular Endocrinology 12(3), 315-324, 1998.

19. Blanco J. C. G., Minucci, S., Lu, J., Yang, X-J., Walker, K.K., Chen, H., Evans, R. M., Nakatani, Y. and Ozato, K. The histone acetylase PCAF is a nuclear receptor coactivator. Genes and Development 12, 1638-1651, 1998.

20. Medvedev, A. E., Blanco, J. C. G. Qureshi, N. and Vogel, S. N. Limited role of ceramide in lipopolysaccharide-mediated mitogen-activated protein kinase activation, transcription factor induction, and cytokine release. Journal of Biological Chemistry 274(14), 9342-9350, 1999.

21. Bhat, N., Perera, P-Y., Carboni, J. M., Blanco, J. C. G., Golembock, D. T., Mayadas, Y. N and Vogel, S. N. Use of a photoactivatable taxol analogue to identify unique cellular targets in murine macrophages: Identification of murine CD18 as a major taxol-binding protein and a role for Mac-1 in taxol-induced gene expression. The Journal of Immunology 162, 7335-7342, 1999.

22. Salkowski, C. A., Kopydlowski, K., Blanco J., Cody M. J., McNally, R and Vogel, S. N. IL-12 is dysregulated in macrophages from IRF-1 and IRF-2 knockout mice. The Journal of Immunology 163, 1529-1536, 1999.

Papers in preparation:

Interferon Regulatory Factors (IRFs) 1 and 2 regulate Ciclooxygenase-2 gene expression. Blanco J.C. G., Cristina C., Ozato, K. and Vogel S. N.

Proximal defect in IL-1 dependent signal transduction pathway in a patient with recurrent bacterial infection. Blanco J. C. G., Medvedev, A. E., Gallin, J I. and Vogel, S. N.

Retinoic acid induction of histone acetylase expression is an integral part of the retinoid pathway activation in P19 embryonal carcinoma cells. Horn, V., Contursi C., Blanco, J.C.G., and Ozato, K.

Cloning and characterization of a Vitamin D receptor coactivator. Yang, X-J., Blanco J. C. G., Babor, M. and Ozato. K.

RELEVANT PRESENTATIONS:
- International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research (ISICR), Paris, France 1999. "Interferon-gamma activates Cox-2 gene through members of the Interferon Regulatory Family of Transcription factors (IRFs)". Jorge Blanco.

EDUCATION:
-Ph.D in Molecular Biology.
Thesis: Purification of tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii. Cloning and characterization of repetitive DNA sequences of the parasite. Buenos Aires University, Argentina 1987-1992.
- B.S. in Biology with Diploma in Molecular Biology, Buenos Aires University, Argentina 1982-1987.