My laboratory primarily uses Drosophila as a model to investigate the cell cycle control of genome duplication and stability, with a focus on cancer mechanism. Two current major lines of research in my lab investigate how epigenetic modification of chromatin influences DNA replication, and how the apoptotic DNA damage checkpoint is linked to modified cell cycles during development. I am a basic research scientist who has had a long-standing research interest in genome stability and cancer mechanism. My research is currently funded by the NIH and the Walther Cancer Foundation. I was an American Cancer Society (ACS) Post-doctoral fellow, and a recipient of an ACS Research Scholar Award as an Assistant Professor. I was previously a member of the Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. I currently serve on the ACS Development Differentiation and Cancer grant peer review committee. Most recently, my lab has embarked on a translational research project in collaboration with Claire Walczak????s group in Medical Sciences to investigate how cell cycle program is linked to apoptosis in flies and humans. This question is highly relevant to cancer cell survival and tumor re-growth
