It's Thursday. And here's this week's Biomed Bites, a weekly feature that highlights some of Stanford's most innovative research and introduces Scope readers to innovators in a variety of disciplines.
Neon green streaks across the screen. The phrases "End mismatched ligation" and "Repair of DNA double-strand breaks" flash at me. Did I stumble across an online, genetic fix-it shop? Sort of - in that Stanford biochemist Gilbert Chu, MD, PhD, studies broken DNA and has a website to match.
Chu describes his research in the video above: "We started out in the lab trying to understand and recognize DNA that's been damaged by ultraviolet radiation, which causes skin cancer. This led to the discovery of a protein that turned out to be missing in patients with a very rare disease called xeroderma pigmentosum."
XP afflicts about 1 in 1,000,000 people in the United States. Without the protein Chu mentioned, mutations and damage accumulates in sufferers DNA, causes cancers and extreme sensitivity to the sun.
Chu's team has also developed methods that allow other researchers to examine the expression of genes across an entire genome and to determine which cancer patients might be harmed by treatment with ionizing radiation.
"The reason I got interested in this research is that as a member of the Department of Medicine, I am an oncologist and I'm very interested in trying to help cancer patients," Chu said.
Learn more about Stanford Medicine's Biomedical Innovation Initiative and about other faculty leaders who are driving forward biomedical innovation here.
Previously: Skin cancer linked to UV-caused mutation in new oncogene, say Stanford researchers, Radiation therapy may attact circulating cancer cells, according to new Stanford study and How ultraviolet radiation changes the protective functions of human skin
