A University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) researcher has received $792,000 in funding to study DNA repair mechanisms.
Justin Leung, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology, was awarded the four-year Research Scholar grant by the American Cancer Society. Leung’s research is designed to study the interaction between signaling molecules on chromatin and proteins that repair broken DNA during replication.
This grant will enable Leung to study the regulatory mechanism between a signal on newly replicated DNA and how specific enzymes are brought to direct repairs at the DNA break.
“Understanding the molecular processes of DNA repair can help both better diagnose cancer and to progress treatment,” Leung said in a statement.
In 2020, Leung received a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Studies to investigate DNA damage response in cancer and other genetic disorders. “Our lab aims to understand how cells precisely repair DNA damage at the right place and right time. We investigate how the DDR is initiated and the mechanism by which DNA repair proteins are brought to the DNA breaks,” Leung said at the time.
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Image courtesy of UAMS