"Replicating your genome: a tale of two helicases "

Hosts: Prof Karim Labib & Prof John Rouse

Venue: MSI Small Lecture Theatre, SLS

The Deegan lab investigates fundamental aspects of DNA replication using a range of biochemical, genetic and structural biology approaches, including reconstituting DNA replication in the test tube using purified proteins.

Tom did his PhD at CRUK Clare Hall Laboratories (now The Francis Crick Institute) in London, working on mechanisms of DNA replication initiation with John Diffley. He then moved to Dundee to do a postdoc with Karim Labib, where he established new biochemical and structural biology approaches to interrogate the poorly understood termination phase of DNA replication. During his postdoc, Tom’s work identified a new pathway for DNA replication termination in eukaryotes (Deegan et al., Mol Cell, 2019), and uncovered the mechanisms and regulation of replisome disassembly (Jenkyn-Bedford et al., Nature, 2021). Tom established his independent laboratory at the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh in 2021.

In his talk, Tom will discuss unpublished data from a number of ongoing projects in the lab, including investigation of the molecular mechanisms by which accessory DNA helicases drive replication fork progression when the CMG replicative helicase stalls, and the identification of a new pathway for assembling the MCM2-7 catalytic core of CMG in human cells.