Edgar Hartsuiker is a Senior Lecturer in Cancer Biology at the School of Medical and Health Sciences. Edgar developed an interest in meiotic recombination and DNA repair during his studies at Wageningen University, the Netherlands (MSc) and University of Bern, Switzerland (PhD). During his time as a postdoc in the lab of Prof. Carr at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre at Sussex University, he continued to work on these subjects and became interested in DNA repair mechanisms that repair DNA damage caused by clinically important cancer drugs.
His work on the removal of topoisomerases in cells, which have been treated with clinically important cancer drugs was funded by a project grant from Cancer Research UK, and formed the basis for his successful application for a Cancer Research UK Career Establishment Award in Bangor. Edgar has since expanded his interests to the role of DNA repair mechanisms in resisting treatment with another group of clinically important cancer drugs, the nucleoside analogues.
Edgar is currently developing a range of inhibitors against the Mre11 nuclease activity, in collaboration with Prof Andrea Brancale, with an aim of creating drugs, which can specifically target cancers with various defects in DNA repair. Edgar鈥檚 work at Bangor University has been funded by Tenovus, Cancer Research Wales, North West Cancer Research and KESS.