Bruce Demple PhD

Prof. Demple has been involved in research on DNA repair since his graduate studies at U.C. Berkeley, where he discovered the first DNA glycosylase acting on oxidative DNA damage. As a postdoctoral fellow, he isolated the sacrificial repair protein O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase and showed that it acts with “suicide” kinetics. He identified the active site cysteine, and used protein sequence information to help clone the ada gene encoding the methyltransferase.

During this time, he also carried out independent work establishing the existence of an oxidative stress response to hydrogen peroxide.