Monika Gullerova has been awarded The Major Research Grant by Jesus College in March 2016.
The award provides funding for ChIP-seq and RNA-seq sequencing costs for the project: “Phosphorylated nuclear Dicer in DNA damage response”.
Monika’s research hopes to further scientists’ understanding into DNA repair, as she explains:
“Every cell contains DNA, which encodes essential genetic information. Environmental and stress conditions continuously trigger DNA damage, which has to be fixed immediately. DNA damage response (DDR) is a complex pathway leading to complete DNA lesion repair. If DDR is not efficient, then programmed cell death ensues. Recent reports suggest that Dicer, an enzyme that cleaves double strand RNA, is involved in DDR by producing small RNA molecules derived from double strand DNA breaks. We are currently investigating the molecular mechanism of how nuclear Dicer contributes to DNA damage repair.”
See the Gullervora group website for further information about their research.