WEHI Wednesday Seminar hosted by Professor Andrew Roberts
 

Associate Professor Ian Majewski

Laboratory Head, Blood Cells & Blood Cancer division – Cancer Research and Treatments Theme, WEHI
 

DNA damage, fast and slow

 

Davis Auditorium

Join via SLIDO enter code #WEHIWednesday

Including Q&A session
 

Some forms of DNA damage appear rapidly, like a monsoon downpour. Others accumulate slowly, like a dripping tap, gradually eroding the genome over decades. My laboratory uses computational methods to study patterns of DNA damage, both fast and slow. We develop experimental approaches to model DNA damage seen in human cancers, including using genetic tools to inactivate DNA repair pathways and applying chemical and enzymatic stressors. In this talk I will discuss our efforts to characterise mutational signatures linked to anti-viral drugs, and from enzymes – cytidine deaminases – that are deployed to defend against viral infection. Our work reveals how cellular context, including genetic and metabolic characteristics, influences susceptibility to DNA damage, which has important implications for how we develop and assess new therapies, and for understanding the long-term health impacts that stem from DNA damage.

Ian Majewski is a Laboratory Head in the Blood Cells and Blood Cancers Division at WEHI. Ian completed a PhD in genetics in 2008, before training at the Genome Center in St. Louis as a Victoria Fellow, and at the Netherlands Cancer Institute as a CJ Martin Fellow. Ian has run a laboratory at WEHI since 2015, with a focus on how cancers begin and how they change over time. Ian is also the Head of Research Integrity and Ethics at WEHI.

All welcome!