Lab News

New Manuscript Published:

June 2020: Karol Szlachta, Sandeep Singh, and Heather Raimer published their work “Topoisomerase II contributes to DNA secondary structure-mediated double-stranded breaks” in Nucleic Acids Research.
March 2020: Sandeep Singh, Karol Szlachta, and Heather Raimer published their work “Pausing sites of RNA polymerase II on actively transcribed genes are enriched with DNA double-stranded breaks” in Journal of Biological Chemistry.
January 2020: Karol Szlachta, Heather Raimer, and Laurey Comeau published their work “CNCC: An analysis tool to determine genome-wide DNA break end structure at single-nucleotide resolution” in BMC Genomics.

May 2019: Heather Raimer successfully passes her Ph.D qualifying exam and becomes a Ph.D candidate.
July 2019: Graduate student Heather Raimer’s CMB Training Grant is renewed for another year.
July 2019: Graduate student Naomi Atkin receives a trainee award from the UVA Cancer Center for her work focusing on assessing individual susceptibility for cancer-causing chromosomal abnormalities by measuring DNA breaks.
October 2019: Naomi Atkin and Heather Raimer co-author the review “Broken By the Cut: A Journey into the Role of Topoisomerase II on DNA Fragility” in Genes.

July 2018: Karol Szlachta, Naomi Atkin, and Ryan Thys published their work on “Alternative DNA secondary structure formation affects RNA polymerase II promoter-proximal pausing in human” in Genome Biology.

July 2018: Graduate student Heather Raimer receives the NIH Predoctoral Cell and Molecular Biology Training Grant.

Jan. 2017: Christine Lehman’s work on “DNA fragile site breakage as a measure of chemical exposure and predictor of individual susceptibility to form oncogenic rearrangements” is published in Carcinogenesis, 3: 293-301.
May 2017: Naomi Atkin’s Training Grant is renewed for another year.
June 2017: Congratulations to Dr. Yuh-Hwa Wang on her promotion to Professor!
August 2017: Naomi Atkin successfully passes her Ph.D. qualifying exam and is now a Ph.D. candidate.
Nov. 2017: Naomi Atkin attends the 1st Annual Commonwealth of Virginia Cancer Research Conference

Feb. 2016: Naomi Atkin, a first-year Ph.D. student, joins the lab.
March 2016: Christine Lehman and Dr. Yuh-Hwa Wang attend Gordon Research Conference “DNA Damage, Mutation, and Cancer”
May 2016: Congratulations to Christine Lehman for successfully defending her dissertation on “DNA Fragile Site Breakage as a Measure of Long-Term Chemical Exposure and Predictor of the Susceptibility to Form Chromosomal Rearrangements”
May 2016: Naomi Atkin receives the NIH Predoctoral Cancer Training Grant on DNA fragility in breast cancer.
July 2016: Dr. Yuh-Hwa Wang attends the FASEB Science Research Conference “Dynamic DNA Structure in Biology”
Oct. 2016: Dr. Yuh Hwa Wang attends the American Society of Human Genetics Conference
Nov. 2016: Christine Lehman, Ph.D. was awarded “Best Postdoc Presentation” at the Annual BMG Departmental Retreat.

Oct 2015: Ryan Thys’ work on “DNA Replication dynamics of the GGGGCC repeat of C9orf72” is published in J. Biol. Chem., 290:28953-28962, to understand the expansion of a GGGGCC repeat located at C9orf72 and associated with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia.

September 2015: Our RET/PTC rearrangements RO1 grant got renewed by NCI for four more years.

June 2015:Ryan Thys and Christine Lehman and our collaborator Levi Pierce (Human Longevity) published their work on “Environmental and chemotherapeutic agents induce breakage at genes involved in leukemia-causing gene rearrangements in human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells” in Mutation Research, 779:86-95.

May 2015: Congratulations to Ryan Thys for successfully defending his dissertation on “DNA Secondary Structure in Human Disease and Gene Regulations”.

Jan. 2015: Ryan Thys was awarded Best Poster award at the 8^th International Conference on Unstable Microsatellites in Human Disease at Guanacaste, Costa Rica.