Genome replication and maintenance play fundamental roles in both tumorigenesis and cancer treatment. The overarching goals of my research are to investigate the molecular mechanisms of genome replication and maintenance processes, how they work under normal and stress conditions, how their abnormalities lead to mutations, genome rearrangements and cancer, and how they selectively protect cancer genome integrity during cancer treatment.

In the immediate future, my laboratory will focus on pathways within mitochondria, which employ distinct proteins for genome replication and maintenance and play important roles during cancer development and progression. A deep understanding of mitochondria g...

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Genome replication and maintenance play fundamental roles in both tumorigenesis and cancer treatment. The overarching goals of my research are to investigate the molecular mechanisms of genome replication and maintenance processes, how they work under normal and stress conditions, how their abnormalities lead to mutations, genome rearrangements and cancer, and how they selectively protect cancer genome integrity during cancer treatment.

In the immediate future, my laboratory will focus on pathways within mitochondria, which employ distinct proteins for genome replication and maintenance and play important roles during cancer development and progression. A deep understanding of mitochondria genome replication and maintenance will help dissect how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to cancer and help design molecular strategies in cancer prevention and treatment. Moreover, we will design family-specific inhibitors targeting DNA polymerases for cancer treatment based on our mechanistic studies.

My proposed research has strong synergies with scientists and clinicians at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine in the Texas Medical Center. In long term, we will participate in collaborative research in translating our structural and mechanistic discoveries into novel cancer therapies.

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