A UAMS researcher has received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his work on DNA damage, cell replication and what it means for neurological diseases and cancer, university officials announced Wednesday.
Robert Eoff will use the grant to study the role of a special enzyme in copying G-quadruplex, known as G4, sequences, according to a news release by the university. Dysfunctional G4 maintenance has been linked to neurological diseases such as dementia and ALS. G4 is also believed to be linked to the biology of cancer and cancer therapies, officials said.
“Successful completion of this research will give us a better understanding of how G4 replication errors occur and how they might have come about in the first place,” Eoff said in the release. “Hopefully, this will give us new insight into replication barriers, which cause a wide range of issues in humans and other species, as a first step toward putting this greater understanding to use in the form of new treatments and therapies.”
Eoff is an associate professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a member of UAMS’ Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. Collaborating with Eoff on the project is Julie Gunderson, an assistant professor of physics at Hendrix College.