The Netherlands Cancer Institute shared a post on LinkedIn:
” ‘That’s when I knew that I wanted to work here.’
‘Imagine you are watching a movie and you accidentally spill your drink. It helps to pause the movie so you can clean up before you continue watching. Healthy cells can use similar tricks during DNA replication: at defined checkpoints, they effectively press a ‘pause button’ when replication errors occur, for example. The cell first resolves these errors before progressing to the next phase of the cell cycle.
To the surprise of nearly all colleagues, including those abroad, I discovered that a particular protein plays an important, previously unrecognized role in this process. When this protein is non-functional, tumor cells proceed to the next cell-cycle phase without repairing the replication errors. This often leads to failure in the subsequent phase, eventually resulting in cell death due to too much DNA.
I still remember how impressed I was when I was an intern and saw researchers from different departments openly share their findings: true cross-pollination. That was the moment I knew I wanted to continue here as a PhD student.’
Frank van Gemert is a researcher at VUS Genetics, a start-up in Amsterdam.
He will defend his thesis on November 18.”
More posts featuring The Netherlands Cancer Institute.