News Archive

  • March 2024: Congratulations to Shijun Gao on his publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. In collaboration with Professor Dong Wang’s group (UCSD), Shijun provides the first characterization of how the biologically important DNA lesion, Fapy•dG affects transcription.
  • January 2024: Congratulations to Tingyu on defending her Ph.D.
  • November 2023: Welcome to our two undergraduate researchers, Beyoncé Hector and Abby Morita. Abby and Beyoncé are members of the FiGURE program at JHU.
  • October 2023: Congratulations to Tingyu Wen on her publication the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Along with our computational collaborators in France, Tingyu carried out a comprehensive analysis of DNA-protein crosslink formation in nucleosome core particles.
  • August 2023: Welcome to Daniel Liu. Daniel is a first-year CBI student who is doing a rotation with us.
  • August 2023: Congratulations to Hasan on his publication in ACS Chemical Biology on inhibition of SAMHD1, a promising target for anti-cancer therapy.
  • August 2023: Welcome to Peixin Wang. Peixin is a student at Nankai University and will be doing a research internship with us.
  • July 2023: Congratulations to Shijun and Haozhe for their publication in DNA Repair on the effects of a tandem lesion containing Fapy•dG on replication in mammalian cells. Yet another example where Fapy•dG has more significant effects than the oft studied, related DNA lesion 8-OxodG.
  • July 2023: Welcome to Jordan Lamar who is carrying out summer research with us.
  • June 2023: Congratulations to Son Vu and Haihui Peng on their publication in the Journal of Organic Chemistry. They showed that oxime esters can be used as radical precursors for a nitrogen-centered DNA radical. This could prove useful for producing radiosensitizing agents.
  • April 2023: Congratulations to Haozhe Yang on his publication in Chemical Research in Toxicology. Haozhe showed that the widely studied DNA lesion, 8-OxodGuo is generally less mutagenic in human cells than Fapy•dG, a chemically related DNA lesion that our group has extensively studied.
  • March 2023: Congratulations to Marco Jacinto on his publication in Biochemistry. Marco demonstrated that the DNA damage-induced histone modification that he discovered is selectively recognized by histone deacetylase 1 and covalently inactivates the enzyme.
  • October 2022: Welcome to our newest graduate student, Ms. Xuanhe Jiang.
  • October 2022: Congratulations to Marco Jacinto on his publication in ChemBioChem. Marco demonstrated that the DNA damage-induced histone modification that he discovered is selectively recognized by bromodomain proteins.
  • October 2022: Congratulations to Morgan Dasovich, our joint CBI student, on a brilliant Ph.D. defense.
  • October 2022: Good luck to Dhananjani at TriLink.
  • September 2022: Welcome to our newest graduate student, Mr. Hanrui Yu.
  • September 2022: Congratulations to Tingyu Wen on her publication in Biochemistry. Tingyu is the first to examine the local electrostatic environment in a nucleosome core particle.
  • June 2022: Welcome to Christopher McDonald, an incoming CBI student who will rotate with us this summer.
  • May 2022: Welcome to Tori Tavernier, who is conducting research with us as an NSF REU student.
  • May 2022: Welcome to Dhananjani Adikari Eriyagama, our newest postdoctoral scholar.
  • May 2022: Congratulations to Tingyu Wen on receiving the Ada Sinz Hill fellowship for advanced graduate students.
  • May 2022: Congratulations to Haozhe Yang on his publication in JACS. This was joint effort with the Freudenthal and Basu labs on providing a structural basis for understanding the mutagenic effects of the DNA lesion, formamidopyrimidine (Fapy•dG).
  • April 2022: Congratulations to Marco Jacinto on his publication in JACS. Marco demonstrated that a DNA damage-induced histone modification is produced in cells.
  • April 2022: Our review on the Reactivity of Damaged DNA in Nucleosome Core Particles is published in Accounts of Chemical Research.
  • January 2022: Congratulations to Marco Jacinto on defending his Ph.D. Best of luck at Amgen!
  • December 2021: Welcome to our new graduate student, Son Vu.
  • October 2021: Congratulations to our colleague, Professor Xiongyi Huang on his designation as a prestigious Packard Fellow for Science and Engineering. Check it out: https://www.packard.org/insights/news/meet-the-2021-class-of-packard-fellows-for-science-and-engineering/
  • September 2021: Congratulations to Haihui on his publication in JACS on the reactivity of 2′-deoxycytidin-N4-yl radical (dC•) in DNA. dC• forms tandem lesions and participates in electron transfer in DNA.
  • September 2021: Congratulations to Haozhe on his collaborative publication in DNA Repair on the mutagenicity of the structurally unusual and biologically important DNA lesion, Fapy•dG, in mammalian cells.
  • August 2021: Welcome to our new postdoctoral scholar, Hasan Howlader.
  • July 2021: Congratulations to Shelby on her publication in ACS Chemical Biology. Shelby determined the DNA polymerase beta inhibition is synthetically lethal in BRCA1-deficient cells. Shelby’s results increase the importance of the enzyme as an anti-cancer target.
  • July 2021: Congratulations to Shelby on her publication in ChemBioChem concerning the identification of domain specific inhibitors of DNA polymerase beta. The editors gave it VIP designation.
  • May 2021: Best of luck to Shelby in her position at Glen Research.
  • May 2021: Congratulations to Shelby on her publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society concerning the identification of a covalent inhibitor of DNA polymerase beta that is potent and selective in cells.
  • February 2021: Congratulations to Morgan on his publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society concerning the development and application of a probe for identifying poly(ADP-ribose) – protein interactions.
  • January 2021: Welcome to our new postdoctoral scholar, Dr. Lu Cheng.
  • December 2020: Congratulations to Dr. Shelby Yuhas on successfully defending her PhD dissertation!
  • September 2020: Welcome to our new CBI rotation student, Haley Moran.
  • June 2020: Welcome to our new graduate student, Amanda Nguyen from the CDMBB program.
  • June 2020: Congratulations to Liwei on his publication in the Journal of Organic Chemistry on the generation and reactivity of the thermodynamically favored guanine radical involved in DNA damage.
  • May 2020: Congratulations to Liwei on his joint publication with the Su group in Angewandte Chemie on the generation and reactivity of a major purine radical involved in DNA damage.
  • May 2020: Congratulations to Huabing and Haozhe on their joint publication with the Woodson and Ha groups in PNAS on photo triggered ribozyme folding using single molecule detection.
  • January 2020: Congratulations to Haozhe on his Chem. Eur. J. paper on the synthesis of oligonucleotides containing Fapy•dG.
  • January 2020: Congratulations to Haidong on his Biochemistry paper on replication of tandem lesions in mammalian cells.
  • December 2019: Welcome to our new graduate student Kexin Yang.
  • December 2019: Welcome to our new postdoctoral Dr. Haihui Peng.
  • December 2019: Welcome to our new graduate student Shijun (Arvin) Gao.
  • December 2019: Welcome to our new postdoctoral Dr. Ji Hoon Han.
  • November 2019: Welcome to our rotation student, Hannah Haller (CMDB).
  • October 2019: Congratulations to Kun and Huabing on their Chem. Res. Toxicol. paper on the reactivity of the cytotoxic DNA lesion, N3-methyl-2′-deoxyadenosine, in nucleosome core particles. This paper was selected as an ACS Editors’ Choice article.
  • October 2019: Congratulations to Kun on his Chem. Res. Toxicol. paper on MMS-induced DNA-protein cross-links in nucleosome core particles.
  • September 2019: Welcome to our rotation students, Marnie Kotlyar (CBI) and Amanda Nguyen (CMDB).
  • August 2019: Best wishes to Kun, as he leaves to begin his independent career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
  • July 2019: Best wishes to Huabing, as he leaves to begin his independent career as a Professor at Tianjin Medical University.
  • June 2019: Congratulations to Huabing, Liwei and Kun on their JACS communication concerning DNA electron transfer in nucleosomes.
  • May 2019: Congratulations to Kun on his invited manuscript concerning the effects of histone lysine methylation on damaged DNA reactivity in nucleosomes in the special Epigenetics in Toxicology issue of Chemical Research in Toxicology.
  • March 2019: Congratulations to Anup and Kun on their paper in ChemBioChem concerning the reactivity of the major product of C5′-oxidation in nucleosome core particles. The editors designated it a “VIP” paper.
  • February 2019: Welcome to Juan Baltazar, our newest undergraduate member.
  • January 2019: Congratulations to Kun on his paper in ChemBioChem concerning the possible evolution of histone tail amino acid composition as a protective measure against DNA damage.
  • December 2018: Congratulations to Liwei Zheng on defending his Ph.D. Good luck at Stanford.
  • November 2018: Congratulations to Kun on his paper in PNAS that was highlighted in C & E News. Kun discovered novel reactivity of alkylated DNA produced by antitumor agents in nucleosomes and cells.
  • October 2018: Congratulations to Danny on his paper in Biochemistry concerning the scope of repair substrates for DNA polymerases beta and theta.
  • August 2018: Congratulations to Huabing and Liwei on their JACS paper concerning a new mechanism to describe DNA damage formation during electron transfer.
  • September 2018: Welcome to Nicholas (Nick) Hevia, our newest undergraduate member.
  • August 2018: Congratulations to Kun on his communication in ChemBioChem concerning the reactivity of clustered DNA lesions in nucleosome core particles. The editors designated it a “VIP” paper.
  • August 2018: Congratulations to Marco and Patrick on their Org. Lett. publication on 5-methylene-2-pyrrolone synthesis.
  • July 2018: Congratulations to Danny on his JACS paper on DNA polymerase theta.
  • July 2018: Welcome to Harry Greenberg, our CBI rotation student.
  • June 2018: Congratulations to Danny Laverty on defending his Ph.D. Good luck at Harvard!
  • May 2018: Congratulations to Ruixiang, Kun, and Samya on their Biochemistry paper on abasic site reactivity in nucleosome core particles.
  • May 2018: Congratulations to Patrick on winning a Greer Summer Research Fellowship.
  • May 2018: Congratulations to Alex on winning a Vassar College, Mary Landon Sague Fellowship for graduate study.
  • May 2018: Congratulations to Liwei on his JACS publication concerning traceless tandem lesion formation in DNA.
  • April 2018: Best of luck to Ruixiang Wang as he returns to China to begin graduate school at Peking University. Thanks for visiting with us.
  • April 2018: Best of luck to Dr. Po-Ting Lai on his new endeavors.
  • December 2017: Welcome to new graduate student Huijin Lee.
  • December 2017: Congratulations to Danny on his publication in Biochemistry concerning the formation of frameshift products by Pol theta bypass of damaged DNA.
  • December 2017: Congratulations to Liwei on his publication in JACS concerning novel purine radical chemistry in DNA.
  • November 2017: Welcome to new graduate students Alex Gittens and Tingyu Wen.
  • November 2017: Welcome to new graduate student Alex Gittens.
  • November 2017: Congratulations to Liwei on his publication in Org. Lett. concerning the use of hydrazines as photochemical precursors to purine radicals.
  • October 2017: Welcome to new postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Anup Rana from Professor Schmittel’s group, Universität Siegen, Germany
  • September 2017: Congratulations to Kun and Huabing on their posters at the annual CBI Retreat – and to Kun for winning the best poster award.
  • September 2017: Congratulations to Huabing on his publication in JOC on thymidine radical cation generation
  • September 2017: Welcome to new postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Haozhe Yang from Professor Seela’s group.
  • August 2017: Welcome to visiting student Ruixiang Wang from Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • August 2017: Congratulations to Kun on winning Second Place for his Poster Presentation at the National ACS Meeting in Washington, D.C.
  • August 2017: Congratulations to Danny on winning Second Place for his Oral Presentation at the National ACS Meeting in Washington, D.C.
  • August 2017: Welcome to Morgan Dasovich – joint CBI graduate student with Professor Anthony Leung
  • May 2017: Welcome to new postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Po-Ting Lai from Ohio State University.
  • April 2017: Congratulations to Rakesh and Samya on their publication in ACS Chem. Biol. concerning irreversible inhibition of DNA polymerase beta and synergistic effects in HeLa cells.
  • April 2017: Congratulations to Danny on his publication in ACS Chem. Biol. concerning the bypass of (oxidized) abasic sites by DNA polymerase theta.