For the past decade, my lab has worked to develop a basic and translational cancer research program, focusing primarily on the molecular understanding of cancer cell responses to commonly used chemotherapeutic agents. Our research is highly interdisciplinary and collaborative, using a host of tools ranging from quantitative mass spectrometry and biochemistry, to state-of-the art transcriptomics and mouse models. Most notably, we identified the first genome integrity pathway specific for base modifying chemotherapeutics (Brickner et al., Nature, 2017), demonstrated its connection to RNA processing (Tsao et al., Molecular Cell, 2021), and developed a therapeutic approach to target this pathway in cancer (Lukinovic et al., Cancer Discovery, 2022).

I serve as leader of the DNA Metabolism and Repair (DMR) program of the Siteman Cancer Center. A key component of this effort has been the mentoring of post-graduate trainees, as well as physician-scientist faculty, reflecting a deep interest in professional development. As part of the DMR program, I have worked to successfully recruit senior faculty from peer institutions, as well as promoting new faculty hires in the DNA repair field to help increase women and minority representation at WashU. More recently, I became Co-Director of our department’s Physician Scientist Training Program (PSTP). In the last five years in which I have held this role, all of our PSTP graduates have secured investigator-track faculty positions at WashU or other peer institutions, including Yale University, the Salk Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania.