Katja Lamia

Katja Lamia has elucidated the role of cryptochrome proteins CRY1 and CRY2 in coupling circadian rhythms to DNA repair and cancer susceptibility, demonstrating that cryptochromes regulate nucleotide excision repair efficiency in a time-of-day dependent manner. Her laboratory showed that CRY proteins interact with the TIMELESS-TIPIN complex to coordinate DNA replication checkpoints with circadian phase. She established that circadian regulation of DNA repair capacity creates predictable windows of genome vulnerability exploitable by timed chemotherapy. Her work on FBXL3-mediated CRY degradation has revealed pharmacological targets for manipulating circadian DNA repair in cancer.