The awakening of DNA repair at Yale

Yale J Biol Med. 2013 Dec 13;86(4):517-23.

Abstract

As a graduate student with Professor Richard Setlow at Yale in the late 1950s, I studied the effects of ultraviolet and visible light on the syntheses of DNA, RNA, and protein in bacteria. I reflect upon my research in the Yale Biophysics Department, my subsequent postdoctoral experiences, and the eventual analyses in the laboratories of Setlow, Paul Howard-Flanders, and myself that constituted the discovery of the ubiquitous pathway of DNA excision repair in the early 1960s. I then offer a brief perspective on a few more recent developments in the burgeoning DNA repair field and their relationships to human disease.

Keywords: Cockayne syndrome; DNA repair history; UV sensitive syndrome; nucleotide excision repair; repair replication; transcription-coupled repair; ultraviolet light; xeroderma pigmentosum.

Publication types

  • Biography
  • Historical Article
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Connecticut
  • DNA Damage
  • DNA Repair*
  • DNA Replication / genetics*
  • DNA, Bacterial / genetics*
  • DNA, Bacterial / metabolism
  • Escherichia coli / genetics
  • Escherichia coli / metabolism
  • Escherichia coli / radiation effects
  • History, 20th Century
  • History, 21st Century
  • Mutagenesis / radiation effects
  • Research / history*
  • Research / trends
  • Signal Transduction / genetics*
  • Ultraviolet Rays
  • Universities

Substances

  • DNA, Bacterial

Personal name as subject

  • Philip C Hanawalt