Title: Professor to Study Repair of Harmful DNA With New Grant
An associate professor of human science at Georgetown will analyze repair of a highly deleterious type of DNA damage with a recently awarded grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Geneticist Jan LaRocque at Georgetown’s School of Nursing & Health Studies received the three-year award from NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
“Our genomes experience a large amount of DNA damage,” LaRocque explains. “The ability of the cell to recognize and repair DNA damage is essential for maintenance of genomic integrity, while failures in DNA repair can lead to mutations, cell death, premature aging and cancer.”
She says her research aims to analyze repair of a highly deleterious type of DNA damage (a DNA double-strand break) and to determine the mechanism by which the damage is repaired.
LaRocque says she is particularly excited that grant will helps foster the culture of undergraduate research opportunities she has built in her laboratory.
“This project will give undergraduate researchers hands-on experience in a wide variety of molecular and genetic techniques and hypothesis-driven training, which will provide a valuable skill set for future biomedical research and health-related careers,” she says.
LaRocque has co-authored peer-reviewed articles with her undergraduate students, encouraged them to present their research findings at conferences and co-directed the school’s annual and regionally focused Undergraduate Research Conference.
“I congratulate Dr. LaRocque on her new grant award,” says Patricia Cloonan, dean of the School of Nursing & Health Studies. “We are deeply committed to supporting the scholarly aspirations of our undergraduate students through the mentorship and research activity of our faculty. Dr. LaRocque’s work is a strong example of this dynamic research-teaching interaction.”