Arkansas in good hands - The National Cancer Institute has awarded Researcher Justin Leung, PhD, a five-year, $1.47 million grant to research DNA at UAMS. Leung's project is partnering with Robert Eoff, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the UAMS College of Medicine.

• Together their work could provide a fundamental understanding of the molecular mechanism of DNA damage regulation in our body and also reveal potential targets for cancer therapeutic development, Leung said.

• Leung and Eoff will study the "Mechanistic Characterization of Cell Cycle-Dependent DNA Repair," which focuses on dissecting the molecular mechanism on cell cycle-regulated DNA repair, specifically during early DNA replication.

• The NCI grant proceeded Leung's four-year, $792,000 American Cancer Society Research Scholar grant to study DNA repair mechanisms, which he plans to use to investigate how signaling molecules on chromatin interact with proteins that repair broken DNA during replication.

• And before that, in September 2020, Leung received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences in support of the researcher’s roadmap project, “Deciphering the Chromatin-based DNA Damage Response Pathway.” -Talk Business & Politics

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