Photo: Hallie Leo
Emily Blackburn, MPH, a PhD candidate in the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School, is researching a DNA replication and repair protein found in some cancers with funding from the National Cancer Institute.
Blackburn received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to research proliferating cell nuclear antigen, or PCNA. Shaped like a ring, PCNA encircles DNA and recruits the proteins essential for replication and repair. A biomarker for cell proliferation, PCNA can also be a marker for tumor growth and progression in some cancers, such as melanoma.
"PCNA is able to tolerate different mutations,” said Blackburn, “that is it can harbor mutations that doesn’t impair its normal function. To identify deleterious mutations, I'm taking the gene and creating mutations that change each amino acid, one-by-one, to find variations that survive. This will allow us to understand PCNA mutations that are associated with skin, lung, liver and breast cancer, with the hope that this leads to genetic therapies or even identifying earlier points of intervention.”
A student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology Program, Blackburn studies PCNA in the lab of Brian Kelch, PhD, professor of biochemistry & molecular biotechnology.
“This grant is a testament to Emily’s thoughtful and creative approach to science: finding a critical problem that nobody has adequately addressed and devising innovative ways to tackle it with optimism and rigor,” Dr. Kelch said. “Her work will provide us a roadmap to understand the evolution of a protein central to DNA replication in all organisms and illuminate how certain mutations lead to disease.”
“My dad was diagnosed with two types of cancer around the time I found out about my grant,” said Blackburn, who shared that her father had surgery when she received her NIH funding earlier this year and is now recovering. “Since my grant is funded by the National Cancer Institute, it’s a little more special to have a personal connection and feel like I’m helping my dad and family members affected by cancer.”
Blackburn majored in molecular and cell biology and minored in chemistry, psychological sciences, and physiology and neurobiology at the University of Connecticut. She earned her Master of Public Health from UConn Health. Outside of the lab, she enjoys kayaking.
“At UMass Chan, I love the open lab space,” she said. “We're always going around to different bays and getting to know everyone in our department, helping each other out and borrowing equipment or reagents. Collaboration makes science here fun.”
