Dewar Lab
Harnessing biochemical mechanisms of replication to understand environmental risk & improve cancer therapy.
Director: James Dewar
https://www.vumc.org/vvc/health-over-time
For cellular life to exist, genetic material must be copied and passed on to newly divided cells. In humans, this process is phenomenally accurate and occurs with an error rate of around one in a billion. In the Dewar lab, we are working to understand the mechanisms that underlie the completion of DNA synthesis, which poses unique problems that are not present during earlier stages of replication. Our research is important to better-understand molecular causes of aging and cancer, develop better cancer treatments, and evaluate the risk of genotoxins (both environmental and endogenous). Our major contributions thus far elucidation of biochemical mechanisms of replication completion and understanding the cellular biochemical responses to anti-cancer drugs.