Graduate Student, Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology
B.S. University of Illinois (2007)
started in the lab May 2009

Research Interests

I am interested in how structure-selective endonucleases generate meiotic and mitotic crossovers. I began by exploring the functions of the putative Holliday junction resolvase GEN in Drosophila melanogaster. Its orthologs, yeast Yen1 and human GEN1, play a secondary role to Mus81 during DNA damage repair and meiotic recombination. However, Drosophila Gen mutants display much more severe phenotypes than mus81 mutants, suggesting that GEN plays a more primary role in the response to DNA damage. My research has expanded to include all of the known Holliday junction resolvases. I am using both genetic and biochemical approaches to explore the role of these endonucleases in vivo an in vitro. This work will help identify specific roles for structure-selective endonucleases in double-strand break repair and replication fork restart.

Publications from research in the Sekelsky Lab

• C.M. Lake, J.K. Holsclaw, S.P. Bellendir, J. Sekelsky, and R.S. Hawley (2013) The development of a monoclonal antibody recognizing the Drosophila melanogaster phosphorylated histone H2A variant (γH2AV). G3 (in press).
   
• S.P. Bellendir and J. Sekelsky (2013) An elegans solution for crossover formation. PLOS Genetics (in press).
   

Talks at conferences

• "Substrate specificity of the Drosophila Holliday junction resolvase GEN"
  Genetics/GMB Retreat at the Beach, Sept. 28, 2013.

Awards

Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology training grant, 2009-2010