Damage to DNA is inevitable. As such, cells invest a great sum of resources to protect its genetic material, failing which compromises cell survival and organismal development. Understanding the principles of DNA repair control has strong implications in the development of therapeutics for the treatment and management of genome instability-related human disorders. For instance, noting that defective DNA repair fuels human tumourigenesis, understanding the inherent differences between how normal and cancerous cells respond to DNA damage can help reveal the Achilles’ heel of human cancers, guiding development of personalised medicine for future anti-cancer interventions.

Here in the laboratory we are interested in solving the fundamentals that underlie how cells, cancerous or otherwise, deal with damaged DNA. By dissecting the cell intrinsic mechanisms that fine-tune genome stability maintenance, we envisage that our communal efforts in defining DNA damage surveillance and repair processes will also reveal new causal relationships between dysregulated DNA repair control and a spectrum of human diseases.