Entries by Nancy McNamara

Overview

DNA damage is known to drive mutations and cell toxicity, both of which promote cancer and aging. Recent results also suggest that DNA damage may modulate disease progression following infection. Research in the Engelward laboratory centers on the interplay between DNA damage and its downstream consequences, with the goal of understanding the underlying mechanisms that […]

CometChip: Microarray for DNA Damage

For decades, researchers have measured DNA damage using the single cell gel electrophoresis assay, or comet assay. Originally developed by Singh et al in 1988, the basis for the assay is that damaged DNA migrates more readily than undamaged DNA when electrophoresed. Although effectively used in thousands of publications, the assay nevertheless suffers from sample-to-sample […]

MicroColonyChip: Cell Survival Quantitation

We have recently developed the MicroColonyChip, a new cell survival platform that uses a novel metric: colony size (Cell Reports, 2019). The ‘gold standard’ for quantification of cytotoxicity is the colony forming assay. This assay requires that colonies grow long enough to form visible colonies that are then counted manually. We have created a new […]

RaDR Mice: Fluorescence Detection of Mutant Cells

Homologous recombination is critical for repairing double strand breaks (DSBs), but it likely evolved primarily as amechanism for repairing broken replication forks. DNA replication forks can break down when they encounter DNA lesions. In order to detect homologous recombination in adult animals, we genetically engineered a DNA substrate wherein recombination between two non-functional copies of […]