Keith Garcia, a Cancer Biology Ph.D. student in Dr. Munir Tanas’ laboratory, was recently awarded a University of Iowa Sloan Center Mini-Grant. These grants are awarded for the purchase of key reagents to be used in the student’s research project. Keith’s Ph.D. dissertation is focused on understanding the role of the Ada2a-containing (ATAC) histone acetyltransferase complex in mediating activity of the TAZ-CAMTA1 and YAP-TFE3 fusion proteins. TAZ-CAMTA1 and YAP-TFE3 fusion proteins arise in a vascular sarcoma, and serve as model systems to understand TAZ and YAP activation in cancer. He will be utilizing the Mini-Grant to assist in performing structure-function experiments dissecting the mechanism of the gene fusion-ATAC interaction.