Description:

Title: 'Nucleic Acid Transactions by Helicases are Involved in Fundamentally Important Biological Processes

Speaker: Robert M. Brosh, Jr., PhD, NIH

Senior Investigator & Chief, Section on DNA Helicases

Laboratory of Molecular Gerontology

National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health

Host: Hank Seifert, PhD

Topic:

 Genetic mutations in a class of molecular motor proteins known as helicases are linked to a growing number of human disorders, indicating that these enzymes have vitally important roles during replication, DNA repair, recombination and transcription. My research team believes that defining the biochemical and cellular functions of helicases will help us understand molecular defects associated with chromosomal variability. The focus of our group is genetic diseases frequently associated with premature aging, cancer, and/or mitochondrial dysfunction arising from mutations in genes encoding DNA helicases that operate uniquely in pathways of DNA repair and the replication stress response. Topics of interest include the importance of helicases in the replication stress response, cellular homeostasis, immunity and DNA repair.