http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/stories/person/1078 Stories and external links referencing a person (RSS) en http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/repairing-dna-damage <!--paging_filter--><p>Scientists have discovered some fascinating details about a handy repair service in your genes that that not much is known about. It searches through the huge amounts of DNA in the core of every human cell and recognizes parts that have become damaged due to the wear and tear of life. Then it removes and helps replace the faulty part without you being aware of it.<br /> For the first time, researchers at Harvard University have taken snapshots of one of these protective "mechanics" at work. It's a protein that checks out parts known as "bases," the building blocks of DNA, which makes up our genes and carries the blueprints for our biology and behavior.</p> <p><a href="http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/repairing-dna-damage">read more</a></p> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:36:05 -0400 50443248 4577 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/images-show-dna-repair-action <!--paging_filter--><p>"We have been able to see, for the first time, a natural antioxidant at work repairing DNA," said Gregory Verdine, professor of chemistry. "Understanding this particular process is especially important because it has been widely implicated in human cancers." Verdine and his colleagues were the first to capture images of natural repairs being made on DNA damaged by oxidation. The same process has been implicated in aging. Mice that age prematurely possess a defective mechanism for repairing oxidized DNA. Loss of a key mending protein appears to work with other genetic factors to accelerate the journey toward death.</p> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:08:36 -0400 70652986 2862 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu