Cancer Institute Seminar Series - Dr Fumiko Esashi

Hosted by: Professor Hiro Yamano

Genomic DNA is the central material storing information for cellular functions, and is transcribed, replicated and transmitted to progeny cells as essential life processes. Paradoxically, however, the integrity of genomic DNA is constantly challenged by these cellular activities, namely transcription and replication. How do cells protect themselves from such threats? Of the various means involved, my group focuses on understanding the mechanism mediated by homologous recombination (HR), catalysed by the RAD51 recombinase.Our previous studies revealed several unexpected regulatory mechanisms for HR, whereby the key HR proteins RAD51, BRCA2 (breast cancer 2) and PALB2 (partner and localiser of BRCA2) are regulated spatio-temporally by central cell cycle kinases such as cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1). I am going to present our recent progress in understanding the mechanism regulating HR in the context of chromatin.

For more information, visit www.path.ox.ac.uk/content/fumiko-esashi

This seminar has been sponsored in part by the Biomedical Research Centre and Cancer Research UK