Gloria Borgstahl, PhD
Professor, UNMC Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases
Co-Director, Eppley Structural Biology Facility
Research Focus: Drug discovery in cancer and structural biology of DNA repair complexes
Dr. Borgstahl also holds courtesy appointments in the UNMC departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Dr. Borgstahl performs basic research on the protein-DNA and protein-protein interactions that govern DNA metabolic processes. Survival and normal growth of cells rely on the basic processes of cell motility, protection against oxidative damage, and DNA metabolism. The entire genome must be replicated reliably every cell cycle and any defect must be corrected.
Specific current studies include examination of the effects of posttranslational modification on protein-protein protein-DNA complexes, their binding and DNA repair activity. The laboratory is also using high throughput screening techniques to find small molecule inhibitors as a potential breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancer treatments.
A second focus is on neutron crystallography of MnSOD which is a NASA project involving crystal growth at the International Space Station.
Another project includes innovative research in cellular motility that will provide new tools to macromolecular crystallographers for structure determination from modulated crystals employing the four-dimensional superspace approach, and will also provide unique structural information for the actin filament.
- BSE, University of Iowa, Biomedical Engineering
- PhD, University of Iowa, Biochemistry