July 2025: Congratulations to Anna Bartosik for being awarded with a Wagner Fellowship. This fellowship is a tribute to Dr. Robert Wagner’s dedication to student training, his encouragement of young scientists, and his love of UVA.
May 2025: For the second year in a row, we have received a generous gift from the Breath of Hope Fund of the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation provided by the Jessup family, to study lung cancer in non-smokers. We are truly grateful for the generous and timely support!
April 2025: Will Marschall presented a poster on “Impact on Gene Expression Upon DNA Topoisomerase II Inhibition “ at the Biomedical Engineering Society mid-Atlantic Research Symposium and the second poster on “Study of DNA Double-Stranded Breaks at the rDNA Region Using T2T Genome Assembly Pipeline” at UVA Undergraduate Research Symposium.
March 2025: Will Marschall, a second year BME undergraduate student has received the Harrison Undergraduate Research Award on “Impact on gene expression upon DNA topoisomerase II inhibition”. Great job!
March 2025: We celebrated International Women’s Day! “Accelerate Action”.
January 2025: Madga Bujnowska, a MSTP student, joined the lab. Welcome abroad!
2024 Recap
October 2024: Anna Bartosik was awarded the Best Talk among all the graduate students at the BMG annual retreat on “DHX36/G4-driven genome instability contributes to immune gene activation”. Four Best Talks so far! Bravo!
August 2024: Kyubin Lee, a Postdoctoral Fellow, has received a UVA Cancer Center Trainee Support Award for his study of “Prediction of DNA G-quadruplexes in cells and its application to pediatric B-ALL”, in collaboration with Professor Aakrosh Ratan from the Department of Genome Sciences. Congratulations!
July 2024: Anna Bartosik received Best Talk award among 18 trainee talks chosen from 49 abstract entries in the FASEB Dynamic DNA Structures in Biology meeting on “DHX36/G4-driven genome instability induces the expression of innate immune genes in cancer cells”. She was also awarded with UVA Cancer Center Trainee Travel Award. Well done!
June 2024: Ay’sia Smith, a rising second year undergraduate student from Lemoyne-Owen College, joined our lab as a 2024 SRIP–DICR fellow funded by the American Cancer Society. Welcome!
May 2024: Britney Doan presented her DMP thesis talk on “Effect of Sequence Variants on DNA Secondary Structure in t-AML Breakpoint Region of KMT2A Gene” and she graduated with a high distinction in Biochemistry. Congratulations!
May 2024: We have received a generous gift from the Breath of Hope Fund of the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation provided by the Jessup family, to study lung cancer in non-smokers. We are truly grateful for the generous and timely support!
March 2024 Calla Mischen, a second year Biology undergraduate student, joined the lab. Welcome Calla!
January 2024: Will Marschall, a first year BME undergraduate student, joined the lab. Welcome aboard!
2023 Recap
December 2023: Anna Bartosik was recognized as Best Speaker in the “Stress Response & Cancer Biology” session at the CommonWealth of Virginia Cancer Research Conference. Congratulations Anna!
November 2023: We are proud to be the first BMG lab as a Gold-certified Green Lab at UVA.
October 2023: We have received a pilot award from the UVACCC Partners in Discovery program to study “DNA Fragility at Key Genome Regions as a Cancer Biomarker to Assess Therapy-Related Acute Myeloid Leukemia Susceptibility”.
July 2023: Anna Bartosik passed her PhD Candidacy Exam with flying colors! Congratulations Anna!
June 2023: Dr. Herman Fennell from Hampton University is visiting our lab as a 2023 STRIVE Scholar supported by the UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center!
May 2023: Rishi Vuppala, a second year undergraduate student has received a College Council Minerva Research Grant for the Summer to study “Investigating the Role of rDNA Breaking in Aging”, Congratulations, Rishi!
April 2023: Heather Raimer Young successfully defended her PhD Dissertation titled “DNA secondary structure-driven genome instability in ALS and cancer“. Congratulations, Dr. Raimer Young!
February 2023: Britney Doan, a third year chemistry undergraduate student has received the Harrison Undergraduate Research Award for outstanding research projects to study “Naturally Occurring Variants and Their Effect on DNA Secondary Structure in the Therapy-related AML Breakpoint Region of the KMT2A Gene”. Congratulations, Britney!
January 2023: Rishith Vuppala, an undergraduate researcher, joined the lab. Welcome aboard!
2022 Recap
October 2022: Dr. Kyubin Lee, a Postdoctoral Researcher, joined the lab. Welcome aboard!
July 2022: Heather Raimer Young presented a talk on “Understanding the role of G-quadruplexes and G4R1 in c9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat expansion-driven ALS” at the Dynamic DNA Structures in Biology Conference in Nova Scotia, Canada
June 2022: Ania Bartosik, a rising second-year BMG graduate student, has received a UVA Cancer Center Trainee Support Award for her study of “Targeting G-quadruplex Structures as a Novel and Highly Promising Therapeutic Strategy”.
June 2022: Britney Doan, a second year undergraduate student has received a College Council Minerva Research Grant for the Summer to study “Pyridostatin’s effect on the viability of cells with G4C2 repeat-driven ALS”, Congratulations, Britney!
May 2022: Congratulations to Heather Raimer Young for receiving the GBS Student Leadership Award!
May 2022: Reem Al-Humadi, a 4th year neuroscience undergraduate student, won the top prize for her oral presentation at the Fozdar Symposium on “Effect of pyridostatin” on global gene transcription in ALS/FTD with c9orf72 repeat expansion”.
April 2022: Heather Raimer Young, a 5th year PhD candidate, was awarded with the Hamlin Lecture Series Award which is given in honor of former BMG Chair, Dr. Joyce Hamlin.
February 2022: Ania Bartosik, a first-year BIMS graduate student, decided to join our lab. Welcome back, Anna!
January2022: Dr. Pei-Chi Hou, a Research Scientist, and Britney Doan, an undergraduate researcher, joined the lab. Welcome aboard!
2021 Recap
November 2021: Heather Raimer and Ania Bartosik gave talks on their work at the Commonwealth of Virginia Cancer Research Conference in Richmond.
July 2021: Congratulations to Heather Raimer, a rising 5th year Ph.D. student, for being awarded with a Wagner Fellowship. This fellowship is a tribute to Dr. Robert Wagner’s dedication to student training, his encouragement of young scientists, and his love of UVA.
July 2021: In collaboration with Patrick Dillon M.D. and Christiana Brenin M.D., our project entitled “Developing a DNA susceptibility test to identify breast cancer patients having high risk for therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia” was awarded with the Thelma R. Swortzel Collaborative Research Award.
May 2021: Anna Bartosik won the first prize for her talk “The role of G4R1 helicase and DNA G-quadruplex structures in the formation of DNA double-strand breaks”at the UVA Visiting Student Symposium.
April 2021: Naomi Atkin successfully defended her PhD Dissertation titled “DNA topoisomerase II, CTCF/cohesin binding, and alternative DNA secondary structure alter genomic stability and affect cancer susceptibility”! She is the first student to take part in the new department tradition of signing the Green Room wall. Congratulations Dr. Atkin!
March 2021: Heather Raimer and Anna Bartosik won the BMG Departmental T-shirt design contest.
February 2021: Reem Al-Humadi, a third year neuroscience undergraduate student has received the Harrison Undergraduate Research Award for outstanding research projects to study “Effect of Pyridostatin on G-Quadruplex Structure in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis”. Congratulations, Reem!
January 2021: Our article “Pausing sites of RNA polymerase II on actively transcribed genes are enriched in DNA double-stranded breaks” has been selected as the representative ‘Gene Regulation’ article for the Journal of Biological Chemistry 2020 retrospective collection called “The year in JBC: 2020”. The associate editors looked through hundreds of papers to come up with what they felt best represented the exciting advances reported in JBC last year. Congratulations to all authors!
2020 Recap
December 2020: Our RO1 grant entitled “Genome-wide DNA Secondary Structure Analysis to investigate DNA Fragility“ got renewed by NIH/NIGMS for four more years.
October 2020: We have been awarded a pilot grant from UVA Cancer Center’s Community Outreach and Engagement program to study “Non-smoking-related chemical exposures and potential causality of DNA fragile sites in the formation of ALK, ROS1, and RET rearrangements in lung cancer”.
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.
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
2016 Recap
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.
