Welcome to the Burrows Laboratory!
We are a group of nucleic acid chemists with a focus on chemical modifications to DNA and RNA bases. In DNA, such modifications are typically thought to be deleterious leading to mutations and thus to genetic diseases and cancer; however, we recently showed that oxidized guanosine can function epigenetically to upregulate genes in response to oxidative stress. Modified bases in RNA are considered epitranscriptomic—they help punctuate and regulate the transcriptome. We use methods in chemical biology (synthesis, enzymology, biophysical methods) to sequence DNA and RNA for modifications and to understand structure (e.g. G-quadruplexes) and cell biology assays to understand the function of base modifications in cells. Members of the lab include organic, biological, analytical and biophysical chemists.