This profile is part of a series to highlight the 16 researchers and one community member who will be honored at an April 21 ceremony. The recipients include the 2013 Scientist Laureate, six New Investigators, eight Distinguished Scientists, two Research Leadership awardees, and a Community Service to Research honoree.
- Name: Aimin Peng, Ph.D.
- Title: Assistant professor, oral biology, College of Dentistry
- Joined UNMC: 2010
- Hometown: Anhui, China
Describe your research briefly in layman’s terms.
An important research question I ask is: “How our do cells respond to DNA damage? In particular, how do the cells determine their fate after DNA damage?”
How does your research contribute to science and/or health care?
Radiotherapy or chemotherapy kills cancer cells primarily through induction of DNA damage. Thus, mechanisms that allow cells to recover from the DNA damage response and return to cell proliferation are critical for tumor recurrence and ideal targets for cancer therapy.
We hope to reveal the mechanism of DNA damage recovery and tumor recurrence after chemotherapy and thereby provide better understanding of chemoresistance, potentially leading to more effective cancer therapeutics.
What is the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you, professional or personal?
From old Chinese wisdom: He who gives no thought to far-flung problems soon finds suffering nearby.
List three things few people know about you.
- I love snowboarding.
- I am a good experimentalist in the lab but not very handy at home.
- My wife and I went to the same elementary, middle, and high schools.