Bonita Brewer

Research Summary

DNA replication is undeniably important for life and, as a consequence, cells have evolved mechanisms to monitor replication fidelity and to coordinate completion of replication with other cell cycle events. Using yeast as a model organism, we study how cells choreograph the duplication of their chromosomes, and how defects in initiation of DNA replication contribute to genetic disorders such as the human Meier-Gorlin Syndrome and the mouse chaos3 cancer phenotype. We also are exploring how errors at replication forks contribute to segmental copy number variants that improve fitness.