Penny Beuning - Faculty Profile

The interests of Prof. Beuning's laboratory are to understand cellular responses to genotoxic stress. All organisms experience damage to their genetic material from environmental and endogenous sources. Multiple redundant systems exist to identify and remove damaged bases from DNA in organisms from bacteria to humans. For example, the bacterial SOS response, involving the upregulation of at least 40 genes in E. coli, is induced when cells experience damage to their DNA and other stresses. Many of the genes induced as part of the SOS response are responsible for DNA repair and cell cycle regulation. Another group of genes induced as part of the SOS response play a role in tolerance to DNA damaging agents at a potentially mutagenic cost. The laboratory uses a wide range of techniques to understand the specificity and regulation of responses to DNA damage.