My research is centred around the effects of aberrant expression of normally meiosis-specific genes on DNA repair dysfunction and/or re-wiring in cancer. We are interested in understanding how cancer cells exploit idiosyncratic DNA repair pathways and functionalities that normally act in meiosis. We employ a combination of state-of-the-art genetics, cell biology and cancer biology to define how these pathways might represent currently under-explored potential avenues for biomarker development and therapeutic intervention.
Selected Publications
Rousova, D., Nivsarkar, V., Altmannova, V., Raina, V.B., Funk, S.K., Liedtke, D., Janning, P., Muller, F., Reichle, H., Vader, G., Weir, J.R. (2021) Novel mechanistic insights into the role of Mer2 as the keystone of meiotic DNA break formation. Elife 10;e72330.
Raina, V.B., Vader, G. (2020) Homeostatic control of meiotic prophase checkpoint function by Pch2 and Hop1. Current Biology 30:4413-4424.e5.
Villar-Fernandez MA, Cardoso da Silva R, Firlej M, Pan D, Weir E, Sarembe A, Raina VB, Bange T, Weir JR, Vader G (2020) Biochemical and functional characterization of a meiosis-specific Pch2/ORC AAA+ assembly. Life Sci Alliance 3
Cardoso da Silva, R., Villar-Fernández, M.A., Vader, G. (2020) Active transcription and Orc1 drive chromatin association of the AAA+ ATPase Pch2 during meiotic G2/prophase. PLoS Genetics 16:e1008905.
Kuhl, L.M., Makrantoni, V., Recknagel, S., Vaze, A.N., Marston, A.L., Vader, G. (2020) A dCas9-based system identifies a central role for Ctf19 in kinetochore-derived suppression of meiotic recombination. Genetics 216:395-408.
Vincenten N, Kuhl LM, Lam I, Oke A, Kerr AR, Hochwagen A, Fung J, Keeney S, Vader G*, Marston AL* (2015). The kinetochore prevents centromere-proximal crossover recombination during meiosis. Elife. 4:e10850. * Equal contribution and shared corresponding authors.