Avram's work was published Monday in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. This week, Albany Med announced that the National Institutes of Health awarded Avram two five-year grants to continue studying the molecule that Avram named BCL11B.

BCL11B is a transcription factor that turns certain cell functions on and off, and they are critical for the development and function of the immune system.

Avram said she wishes BCL11B had an easier name, but it's based on a standardized naming convention. Avram's lab discovered that when BCL11B was removed from mice, they developed certain diseases.

A .9 million grant will enable Avram to study the role of BCL11B in the chain of events that triggers the immune system to produce antibodies which kill cells infected with viruses, cancer and other pathogens.

Avram's laboratory has evidence that removing BCL11B during that chain of events causes lymphoma in mice.

"We want to understand why this cellular transformation occurs," she said.

A million grant will allow Avram to study the effect of BCL11B on T-regulatory cells. T-regulatory cells regulate the body's immune response by shutting down specific branches of the immune system after an adequate response.

Avram's team found that when BCL11B was removed from T-reg cells in mice, the mice developed inflammatory bowel disease -- evidence of an overactive immune system.

"It's a fascinating molecule because it has a lot of potential," Avram said.

Avram hopes that someday her research will allow doctors to program BCL11B to better regulate an overactive immune system and identify and fight cancer cells more effectively. Medical applications, however, are many years away.

Avram lives in Albany with her husband, Adrian Avram, an art professor at the Sage Colleges. They have a 22-year-old daughter.

She collaborates with other geneticists including England's Pentao Liu, and Neil Copeland and Nancy Jenkins, co-directors of the Cancer Genetics Laboratory in Singapore.