Dr. David Jen-Chi Chen

Life Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Dr. Chen's laboratory investigates DNA damage repair pathways in relation to human cancer and, indirectly, to other diseases such as "premature aging" (Werner syndrome). Deficiencies in DNA damage signaling and repair pathways are fundamental to the etiology of most human cancers. Of the many types of DNA damage that occur within the cell, DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are particularly dangerous because they impair DNA repair and promote cancer. Two mechanisms that cells have developed to repair DSBs are 1) homologous recombination (HR) which requires a homologous DNA template and 2) non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). The DNA kinase activity combines with a specific substrate, Werner protein (WRN), to begin the repair processes, but in Werner syndrome, a deficiency in the WRN activities results in premature aging and increased incidents of cancer. This study suggests a link between the processes of DNA repair and aging. The continuing research of Dr. Chen's laboratory focuses on understanding the global cellular response to DSBs and to identify the novel genes and proteins involved in these responses utilizing the latest advances in genomic and proteomic technologies.