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| Marlo Thompson studies DNA repair proteins at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute. |
The $500 prize is intended to provide funding for graduate students and new investigators to attend the society’s 2023 annual meeting, planned for September in Chicago.
Thompson, who is in the graduate program's cancer biology track, conducts research at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute in the lab of Aishwarya Prakash, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Whiddon College of Medicine.
Her current research interests are in structural biology and DNA repair: “I am characterizing a novel nanobody that targets the protein NEIL1. NEIL1 is a difficult-to-study protein, so we have developed and characterized our nanobody, which we refer to as A5. One of our main goals is to crystallize NEIL1 and A5 in complex with one another.”
The protein NEIL1 is one of 11 enzymes that catalyze the first step of the base excision repair pathway. A deficiency in NEIL1 has been associated with pulmonary adenomas, hepatocellular carcinomas and colorectal cancers. NEIL1 polymorphisms also have been shown to be adequate markers to predict radiation injury and radiation lung inflammation, a common side effect of treating lung cancers.
Thompson earned an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in biology from Old Dominion University.
The EMGS is the primary intellectual forum for researchers interested in the development and application of transgenic technology of toxicological studies and for the development of methods for studying mutations and the mechanisms of mutation and DNA repair in model cellular systems and humans. Founded in 1969, the EMGS seeks to create a world where science drives sound decisions to protect people's health from environmental hazards.
