Claudia Wiese

My laboratory studies the mechanisms of DNA damage repair and how the inactivation of such mechanisms leads to genome instability and disease. Specifically, we are interested in the genes and proteins that function in homologous recombination DNA repair (HR), a template-dependent double-strand break repair pathway that is defective in breast and ovarian cancer patients with BRCA1/2 mutations. We also study the mis-regulated enhancement of the HR pathway in tumor cells and tissues, and how overactive HR is linked to the resistance of cancer patients to chemo- and radiotherapy, and ultimately to the recurrence of disease. We anticipate that the results from our research will inform the development of new strategies for HR-targeted cancer therapy. In the laboratory, we are using biochemical, structural and cell biological methods, in combination with mouse genetics.