INSIDE THE TANG LAB: DNA DAMAGE & REPAIR
DNA Damage and Repair: From Exposure to Disease.
DNA is continuously damaged by environmental exposures and endogenous metabolism. Although multiple repair pathways protect genome integrity, lesions that escape repair can generate mutations and genome instability, contributing to cancer and age-related diseases. Our research develops technologies to identify, quantify, and map DNA damage and repair across the genome to understand what determines these biological outcomes.
Multidimensional atlas of DNA damage
Our long-term goal is to build a multidimensional atlas of DNA damage across the human genome. We want to understand what type of damage occurs, how much is present, where it occurs in the genome, and how it changes over time.
To achieve this, we integrate several complementary technologies, including high-throughput sequencing, high-resolution mass spectrometry, chemical biology, bioinformatics, and machine learning. Together, these approaches allow us to study DNA damage from its chemical structure to its genomic location and biological consequences. Ultimately, this platform can help answer critical questions in cancer biology, environmental toxicology, genome-editing safety, and aging and neurodegeneration.
