Semlow Lab
Principal Investigator: Daniel Semlow
Institution: California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
Cells are constantly exposed to exogenous and endogenous agents that chemically damage the genome. During DNA replication, this chemical DNA damage can introduce mutations, chromosomal rearrangements, and chromosome mis-segregation events that contribute to progression of cancer and ageing. DNA interstrand cross- links (ICLs) are highly toxic DNA lesions that covalently link the two strands of DNA and block unwinding by the replicative CDC45/MCM2-7/GINS (CMG) helicase. These lesions are generated by cancer chemotherapeutics, endogenous metabolites, and microbiome toxins. Deficits in ICL repair cause the bone marrow failure and cancer predisposition syndrome Fanconi anemia (FA). The products of genes implicated in FA participate in a common ICL repair pathway that is activated when CMG collides with an ICL. Replication fork stalling at the ICL initiates nucleolytic incisions that convert the ICL into a DNA double strand break (DSB). The DSB is itself a potential source of genome instability that must be repaired by homologous recombination. In previous work, we used Xenopus egg extracts to demonstrate that certain ICLs are repaired by an alternative pathway that is also activated up…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01GM151410-04: Emerging Mechanisms of Replication-coupled DNA Repair (2026)
- 5R01GM151410-03: Emerging Mechanisms of Replication-coupled DNA Repair (2025)
- 3R01GM151410-02S1: Supplement: Emerging Mechanisms of Replication-coupled DNA Repair (2024)
- 5R01GM151410-02: Emerging Mechanisms of Replication-coupled DNA Repair (2024)
Explore 700+ US Biology Labs on FindBioLabs.com