Lab News

 

• 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: We have a publication in Scientific Reports entitled ” Transcription-associated DNA DSBs activate p53 during hiPSC-based neurogenesis.”
• 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 4^th 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 5^th 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!
• January 2022: 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.
• August 2021: Naomi Atkin and Heather Raimer, with our collaborators Zhenjia Wang and Chongzhi Zang, published their work “Assessing acute myeloid leukemia susceptibility in rearrangement‐driven patients by DNA breakage at topoisomerase II and CCCTC-binding factor/cohensin binding sites” in Genes, Chromosomes and Cancer.
• July 2021: Congratulations to Heather Raimer, a rising 5^th 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”.
• 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.

 

2019 Recap:

• 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.

2018 Recap:

• 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.
• Februrary 2018: First-year graduate student Heather Raimer joins the lab!

2017 Recap

• 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

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.