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Wood Laboratory
Wood Lab Group Photo
Welcome to the Wood Laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center. We are a research lab in the Department of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis at Science Park, a basic research campus of MD Anderson located near Austin, Texas. Research in our group explores the mechanisms of genome stability and the consequences for cancer, including the biochemical mechanism of repair of cross-links between DNA strands and the DNA polymerases that help cells tolerate DNA damage.
It is important to understand the mechanisms of DNA repair in detail, because this process is a front-line defense against the mutations that cause cancer. Mammalian cells have numerous strategies for repair of DNA damage and devote many hundreds of genes and proteins to DNA repair. Moreover, the aim of many cancer therapies is to disable tumor DNA by using DNA-damaging radiation and drugs. Our research employs a broad range of investigations, ranging from fundamental biochemical studies and proteomics through cellular biology, to genetically engineered mouse models having impaired pathways of repair and mutagenesis.
Recent Events
Rick Wood, Ph.D., has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences!
Sara Martin chaired the Gordon Resarch Seminar: Insights into Genome Instability, from Basic Mechanisms to Clinical Applications, as part of the Gordon Research Conference DNA Damage, Mutation, and Cancer.
We welcome the return of Sarita Bhetawal, our new lab manager. She returns to us with her strong skills working with mice, DNA and protein and new skills in lab management.
Congratulations and farewell to Karen Zima Boulware, who served as our lab manager since 2006. Karen has worked over the past several years to earn her MBA and is now working in the laboratory products industry.
We also recently said goodbye to Shelley Reh, skillful with mice, proteins, cells, organization and the written word.
Our most recent publications are Kei-ichi’s cumulative work on DNA polymerase ν function and Mandira’s dissertation-related paper on XPA.
We are pleased to have research support including a new NIH P01 grant; a DoD Development Award; an NIH R03 award; a CPRIT award and a SPORE developmental research program grant.
In the image below, and at the top of the page, a double-fluorescent Cre reporter system was used to monitor Cre recombinase activity in skin. In this system the transgene mT/mG expresses red fluorescence in cell membranes before Cre-mediated recombination and green fluorescence after Cre-mediated recombination. We can use this system in conditional knock-out strains to monitor cell-specific expression of Cre activity and infer where our gene of interest is no longer expressed.
