Program 

Midwest DNA Repair Symposium Program (PDF link)

All keynote lectures and selected talks will be held in the Health Education Building, Room B104, on the KUMC campus.

Saturday, May 30, 2026

8–9 am Registration, breakfast, and poster setup (Health Education Building, B104)

9–9:45 am Keynote Lecture: Alessandro Vindigni, Washington University in St. Louis: "Mechanisms of DNA Replication Stress Response in Cancer"

Session 1: Abasic Sites: Recognition, Repair, and Beyond

Chair: Elijah Newcomb, University of Kansas Medical Center

9:45–10 am Lauren Pendergast, Washington University in St. Louis — "HMCES promotes error-free replication of abasic sites by promoting repriming over translesion synthesis by polymerase theta"

10–10:15 am Yunqi Zhang, University of Pittsburgh — "DHX36 binds abasic sites and prevents cGAS-mediated immune detection"

10:15–10:30 am Yingling Chen, University of Nebraska Medical Center — "Evolutionarily acquired positively charged residues in the N-terminal domain of mammalian APE1 safeguard genomes from DNA damage and tumorigenesis"

10:30–10:45 am Networking and coffee break

Session 2: Environmental and Oxidative DNA Damage

Chair: Nicholas Ashton, University of Kansas Medical Center

10:45–11 am Tomoo Iwakuma, Children's Mercy Research Institute — "Dual targeting of ROS and DDR creates a synthetic lethal vulnerability in p53-deficient cancer"

11–11:15 am Lily Thompson, University of Pittsburgh — "Oxidative DNA lesions destabilize centromeres and drive chromosome instability"

11:15–11:30 am Peng Mao, Stony Brook University — "UV damage bias for nucleotide excision repair in the human genome"

11:30–11:45 am Daniel Boesch, University of Virginia — "Structural basis of single-strand break processing in the nucleosome by DNA ligase III"

11:45 am–12 pm Magan Pittman, University of South Alabama — "NEIL1 control of mitochondria-related gene expression and isoform usage"

12–1:30 pm Lunch. Grab a boxed lunch and sit outside on picnic tables or in B104

1:30–2:15 pm Keynote Lecture: Scott Williams, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH — "Genome maintenance at the interface of DNA topology and transcription"

Session 3: Metabolism, Transcription, and Replication: Hidden Threats to the Genome

Chair: Natalia Cestari Moreno, University of Kansas Medical Center

2:15–2:30 pm Reinner Omondi, University of Kansas — "Elevated glucose increases genomic instability by generating DNA-protein crosslinks"

2:30–2:45 pm Isabelle Miousse, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences — "Opposing effects of diet-induced obesity and semaglutide in colorectal cancer"

2:45–3 pm Hai Dang Nguyen, University of Minnesota — "Tousled-like kinase 2 mediates RNase H1 phosphorylation to maintain R-loop homeostasis"

3–3:15 pm Maggie Luong, University of Nebraska Medical Center — "Novel cancer driver variants in the polymerase domain of DNA polymerase epsilon"

3:15–3:45 pm Networking and coffee break

Session 4: Replication Forks Under Stress

Chair: Alex Garbouchian, University of Kansas Medical Center

3:45–4 pm Theresa Heidenreich, University of Pittsburgh — "Investigating the mechanisms of the replication stress response to telomeric oxidative damage"

4–4:15 pm Niphat Jirapongwattana, University of Nebraska Medical Center — "A RHNO1-ATR/CHK1 positive feedback loop sustains the cellular DNA replication stress response"

4:15–4:30 pm Georgia Moore, Clemson University — "Small molecule screening reveals HDAC inhibitor sensitivity and CHK1 inhibitor resistance in FBH1-deficient cells"

4:30–4:45 pm Kirsten Brenner, University of Michigan — "The POT-hole of human POT1 prevents ATR activation at telomeres during post-replication end processing"

4:45–5 pm Masayoshi Honda, University of Iowa — "BCR-ABL-mediated phosphorylation of RAD52 switches its role from replication fork protection to mutagenic single-strand annealing"

5–7 pm Poster session (HEB Learning Studio B102)

7–9 pm Dinner (5th Floor Ad Astra Room, Health Education Building, KUMC)

Sunday, May 31, 2026

8–9 am Breakfast (Health Education Building, B104)

9–9:45 am Keynote Lecture: Joann Sweasy, University of Nebraska Medical Center — "DNA Repair Genetic Variants and Human Disease"

Session 5: DNA Double-Strand Break Repair

Chair: Justin Ling, University of Kansas Medical Center

9:45–10 am Thomas Clarke, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine — "Zinc finger guardians of genome stability: disease and therapeutic implications"

10–10:15 am Emma Peacock, Vanderbilt University — "FBH1 unwinds both leading and lagging strands to drive replication fork reversal"

10:15–10:30 am Ayush Mistry, Saint Louis University School of Medicine — "Mechanism of RPA-driven junction-specificity in double-stranded DNA break repair"

10:30–10:45 am Benedict Offor, Saint Louis University School of Medicine — "Liquid-liquid phase separation is required for PALB2-mediated DNA recombination"

10:45–11 am Matthew Jordan, Indiana University School of Medicine — "Acquired resistance to PARP1-specific inhibitor saruparib (AZD5305) remains vulnerable to DNA damage response-targeted therapeutics"

11–11:30 am Networking and coffee break

11:30 am–12:15 pm Keynote Lecture: Anja Bielinsky, University of Virginia — "From Replication Errors to Mitotic Rescue: Maintaining Genome Integrity Across the Cell Cycle"

12:15–12:30 pm Award presentations and adjournment. Box lunches available.