People

My work combines classical biochemistry and genetics methodologies to understand the interaction between endogenous Drosophila proteins, the P element transposon and transposition. Specifically I have identified the core DNA binding components of the Drosophila Inverted Repeat Binding Protein (IRBP) complex as a heterodimer of two basic leucine zipper proteins, IRBP18 and Xrp1. Together these proteins work in concert to promote efficient DNA repair after P element transposase cleavage. Importantly these proteins function as repair proteins in the absence of P elements. Currently I am employing Chip-exo and RNA-seq to further understand how these proteins work to affect general DNA Repair.