Sophia Sergi
- Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
- Brian Luke lab
- Project 4. Understanding RNase H1 regulation at telomeres and beyond
- German
“Even though I never heard of R-loops before my master’s thesis, I think they will play a crucial role in our understanding of how genome stability is regulated.”
Topl is essential for relieving torsional stress during replication and transcription and acts as a safeguard against harmful R-loop accumulation. It also serves as a backup mechanism for ribonucleotide excision repair (RER), removing rNMPs from DNA in a manner that is prone to introducing mutations, which has implications for cancer and other diseases. Our research demonstrates that Topl-dependent mutagenesis increases in aged yeast cells, and we observe a negative correlation between rNMP load and lifespan. The aim of this project is to understand how Topl activity is regulated during aging and how this regulation impacts age- related diseases.
I like riding my motorcycle, sewing, painting, playing Padel, playing videogames.
2022 – 2024: M.Sc. in Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany.
2019 – 2022: BSc in Molecular Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany.