Скачать или смотреть Anja Bielinsky, PhD: Studying Diseases that Arise from Defects in DNA Replication

Studying diseases that arise from defects in DNA replication with Anja Bielinsky, PhD.


Transcript:
I love that I'm able to study a fundamental process in biology. Each cell in our body has about two meters of genetic material that needs to be duplicated before the cell can divide, and thus needs to happen a million times during human development. And it requires a precise biochemical machine. And I find that fascinating.

My name is Anja Bielinsky. I'm the department chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and we study diseases that arise from defects in DNA replication and repair, including immune deficiencies and cancer.

So we actually know a lot about DNA replication, and it was a big surprise how easily that process is derailed. And that is what's happening in cancer cells. Cancer cells let down all of their safeguards and they accumulate mutations. They have broken chromosomes that they stitch together in an abnormal fashion. And these chromosomal rearrangements give them new cancer specific properties, for example, that they are able to proliferate very rapidly.

At the same time. To make that happen, they need to let down their safeguards and they develop specific vulnerabilities that we don't have in normal cells. And those give us an entry to develop new drugs and new treatments for the patients that are afflicted with cancer. And we're doing that in collaboration with the UVA Cancer Center.