Third EU-US workshop on "Nucleotide excision repair and crosslink repair-From molecules to mankind", Smolenice Castle, Slovak Republic, May 7th-11th 2017
McHugh PJ., Kisker C., Chovanec M., Van Houten B.
© 2017. The purpose of this workshop was to bring together scientists from the EU and US to discuss our current understanding of how protein machines assemble and sort through genomic DNA to identify specific damaged sites which are repaired through the two critical repair pathways: nucleotide excision repair or interstrand crosslink repair. Several of the enzymes perform dual functions in both pathways, thus combining these two topics in one meeting provided tremendous synergy and was a unique feature of this workshop. Many endogenous agents, environmental toxicants and chemotherapeutic agents cause a spectrum of DNA lesions that are repaired through these two mechanisms. The importance of the repair pathways acting on these forms of DNA damage is underscored by the fact that their loss or dysregulation is associated with a variety of devastating heritable human conditions including cancer, neurodegeneration, premature aging and severe developmental abnormalities. The workshop covered research conducted on molecules to mankind, and included discussions of disease syndromes associated with poor repair of these forms of damage. The meeting also provided an unparalleled opportunity to interact with scientists from the EU, US, and throughout the world, who are driving the field.