A University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences researcher is part of a national coalition working to better understand how DNA damage leads to cancer-causing mutations.
Gunnar Boysen, an associate professor in the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, is among researchers in the Virtual Consortium for Translational/Transdisciplinary Environmental Research, known as ViCTER. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences for $2.2 million, launched in February 2025 and runs through January 2028. Researchers from the University of California at San Diego and the University of South Florida are also part of the consortium.
The study aims to track both DNA damage and the resulting mutations together in the same system, something researchers say has never been done before.
“When our cells try to copy damaged DNA, mistakes called mutations can happen,” Boysen said. “Our hope is that by connecting the dots between DNA damage and mutations, we can figure out which agents are actually causing harmful mutations like those that lead to cancer so we can avoid them.”
Boysen and his team at UAMS are responsible for determining the position of DNA modification and how exposures bind to DNA. He says their lab developed new technology that can measure exposure on DNA before mutations occur, allowing researchers to distinguish between mutations driven by environmental exposures and those driven by epigenetic changes.
“Eventually, we hope to have targeted prevention strategies to keep damage and mutations from happening, to prevent tumors,” Boysen said.
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