Chromosome maintenance and repair in health and disease

Every day, sunlight, food chemicals, and natural byproducts inside our cells shatter and scramble the DNA that acts as the instruction manual for cell function. If left unrepaired, these countless daily lesions can mutate the genetic code, driving diseases like cancer. This research aims to understand exactly how cells detect, signal, and fix that damaged DNA to prevent mutations and disease in the first place. It also asks why defective repair mechanisms themselves cause illness. This is fundamental science: the goal is to map the machinery of chromosome maintenance and repair at a molecular level. There is no immediate practical application. However, the same work has a deliberate, ironic flip side. Because turning off DNA repair can be highly effective at killing certain cancer cells, the lab is also developing new ways to inhibit repair pathways. If successful, this could lead to novel anti-cancer therapies that exploit a tumour’s own repair weaknesses—a strategy already proven in principle with drugs like PARP inhibitors.