This September, a pioneering centre at the University of Sussex dedicated to research into DNA, gene damage and identifying the cause of a number of human diseases, including cancer, is celebrating its 21st anniversary.
The Genome Damage and Stability Centre GDSC (which was developed from the Sussex Cell Mutation Unit) was amongst the first centres of its kind in the UK, dedicated to understanding DNA damage and repair, and their impact on genome stability and genetic diseases. It was formally opened in 2003 by Nobel Prize winner and Sussex alumni, Sir Paul Nurse, who set up his first research group in biological sciences at Sussex during the 1980s and went on to discover protein molecules that control cell division.
For the past two decades, GDSC has been at the forefront of innovative approaches to identify and discover new genes that are involved in the repair of our DNA, that could help to find cures for genetic diseases, including cancer.
A genome is an organism’s complete set of DNA, which contains both genes and chromosomes. Damage to our genomes is common, occurring many thousands of times in each cell in our body, every day caused by a wide variety of sources, such as environmental exposure to ionising and ultraviolet radiation, carcinogens in cigarette smoke and air pollution.
In the last 20 years, the GDSC has pioneered the identification and characterisation of genes involved in the repair of DNA damage, and uncovered human diseases caused by defects in these genes, such as genetic diseases associated with cancer and neurodegeneration. An example of this is the rare skin condition Xeroderma pigmentosum (XPV) – the defect discovered by GDSC’s Prof Alan Lehmann – which causes extreme sensitivity to sunlight and a strong predisposition to skin cancer.
Last year, the Centre was selected to be one of the University’s 12 Centres of Excellence, recognising its highly innovative and potentially transformative research, making a real difference to the world.
Professor of Genome Stability and Co-Director of the GDSC, Keith Caldecott, says:
“The Centre’s research has discovered the function of a number of novel genes that previously were not known to exist. This work has huge impact, both to fundamental science and to the diagnosis of a number of hereditary genetic diseases caused by genome instability and hopefully in future to the development of novel cures.
“The Centre was one of the first of its kind in the UK, and we are incredibly proud of the pioneering research that has, and currently is, being conducted by present and past Centre scientists and alumni.
Celebrating the last 21 years of GDSC, the University will be hosting a symposium on 12 and 13 September, welcoming back alumni, many of whom now head up their own laboratories across the world, both in the academic and pharmaceutical sector.
Professor Cath Green OBE is another GDSC alumni, who studied DNA damage due to sunlight exposure. Over the last six years, Prof Green has specialised in vaccine development for clinical trials. Most notably, Prof Green's team manufactured the first doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19, which was created in record time with colleague at Oxford’s Jenner Institute, Dame Sarah Gilbert, helping to save millions of lives worldwide.
Prof Green co-authored the book ‘Vaxxers’ which detailed this journey and aimed to demystify the research and explain the safety of the vaccine. Prof Green currently heads up the Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility for Oxford's Nuffield Department of Medicine continuing her work in vaccine development.
Prof Green says:
"The GDSC was a transformative place in my career as the work that I did in Alan Lehmann’s lab enabled me to get a CRUK fellowship to set up my own lab in Cambridge. The strength of the centre, then and now, was the concentration of clever, dedicated people – all working on related questions, which meant that there was always someone around to troubleshoot a problem or work up an idea. It will always have a special place in my memory and the friends that I made there remain important to me. Happy birthday!"
Dr Aaron Goodarzi was a research fellow at the GDSC from 2005-2010. During this time, Dr Goodarzi was investigating the responses of cells to genome damage and their relationship to cancer and other aspects of human disease in the laboratory of Professor Penelope Jeggo. Dr Goodarzi is now a Professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, working in the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute, carrying out research into the impact of radiation exposure effects on human biology and health, with an emphasis on radon gas exposure and lung cancer.
Radon exposure is the second leading cause of lung cancer in Canada, the UK, and Europe, and Dr Goodarzi and his research team were recently awarded funding from the Canadian Cancer Society to identify biological markers related to arsenic, radon and air pollution to better understand how it affects our cells and help reduce cancer risk.
Dr Goodarzi continues to have a strong connection to the GDSC, working closely with researchers at Sussex, including Senior Lecturer in Genome Instability and Cancer, Dr Owen Wells. Drs Wells and Goodarzi are co-authoring a national report on radon gas exposure in Canada, scheduled to be published later this year. Also working in Dr Goodarzi’s laboratory on the biology of radiation exposure is Dr Peter Brownlee, another GDSC alumnus who graduated with his doctorate from Sussex in 2015.