Dr Boris Kysela
Supervisor Details
Research Interests
Throughout my scientific career I have been focused on understanding how mammalian cells respond to the exposure to DNA damaging agents, most specifically those that can break the backbone of DNA molecule. The process of DNA repair is critical for genome maintenance and its dys-regulation underlies oncogenesis, cancer progression and resistance to disease treatment. I have established a novel proteomics approach that has enabled to identify the existence of a previously unknown repair pathway in prokaryotic organisms and was directly involved in discovery and characterization of DNA ligase IV mutations in human patients exhibiting developmental delay and immunodeficiencies. My expertise obtained in the field was also used to provide the evidence and functional characterisation of new gene products functioning in DSB repair and elucidated an unexpected role for these specialized biochemical pathways in primordial dwarfism, a human genetic condition previously not associated with maintenance of genome stability (Am J Hum Genet, 96: 412, 2015). This also led to discovery of the importance of linker histones for the process (PNAS, 102:1877, 2005) and the identification of a linker histone variant that is critically required for the outcome of the repair process in human cells. This linker histone is a very recent addition to the linker histone family and very little is known about its function (Science journal – in preparation). Recently, we have also discovered a critical importance of DNA repair pathways in promoting neurodegeneration (Brain Communications, 1:1, 2019), and re-myelinization (Glia 2024, 72:133-155) and developed a new generation of trimetallic nanoparticles for an experimental cancer treatment (Front. Bioeng. Biotech., 12:1448081, 2024). To all these I have contributed as a lead or corresponding author and/or PI. Overall, I am the leading author and owner of 3 scientific patents and over 50 scientific publications with ~2,800 citations to date.Scientific Inspiration
“Learning without thinking is useless. Thinking without learning is dangerous.” ― Confucius, The Analects
MIBTP Project Details
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