EMBO Member

Thomas Helleday

Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm | Sweden

EMBO 2015

DNA damage and repair in cancer

Many DNA damaging anti-cancer drugs cause replication-associated DNA damage that kills cancer cells. This is an effective way of treating cancer, but the problem is that also normal cells are damaged. Our strategy is to exploit the high level of DNA damage in cancer cells and prevent the repair of these lesions. Using DNA repair inhibitors, we can selectively introduce toxic DNA damage to cancer cells.

Keywords: Homologous recombination / DNA repair / DNA replication / DNA damage response / anti-cancer treatments

Subject area(s): Cell Cycle | Genome Stability & Dynamics | Molecular Medicine