Image: Kelly Dawe, Distinguished Research Professor in Plant Biology and Genetics, is studying how DNA breaks and gets repaired in corn. The Dawe lab is especially interested in a DNA malfunction where chromosomes repeatedly break and rejoin, causing major changes to the genetic code and gene expression. This cycle, also known as “breakage-fusion-bridge” or BFB cycle, creates havoc in cells and has long been suspected as a genetic source of cancer in humans. Building off the Nobel Prize work of corn geneticist Barbara McClintock, who first discovered the BFB cycle, Dawe has developed a tool which can induce this cycle in corn on command. This allows the Dawe Lab to study all steps of the BFB cycle in great detail. Supported by a new grant from the National Institutes of Health, Dawe hopes to help uncover the genetic mechanisms in which cancer develops in humans. This shows that sometimes, answers to big medical questions can come from the most unexpected places – like a cornfield! For the full article in UGA Columns by Alan Flurry click here Image credit: Andrew Davis Tucker.
