The ubiquitylation and deubiquitylation of key molecules involved in the regulation of a cell's response to DNA damage has become an important area of research for therapy of cancers. We focus on ubiquitylation / deubiquitylation pathways related to the DNA replication apparatus and in the dysregulation of DNA damage response induced by viral oncoproteins.
Short and long noncoding RNAs are turning out to be very important for various facets of biology. We study them in the context of how they regulate differentiation of skeletal muscle and the progression of prostate cancer.
With the revolution of genomic sequencing, questions relating to where origins of replication are located, what genes are important for cancer progression or for prediction of responsiveness to chemotherapy, and whether there are new forms of nucleic acid molecules in the cell or in our body fluids have become easier to access. We take a leading role in these areas of exploration.
About Dr. Dutta
His research interests cover genomic instability in cancer cells and noncoding RNAs in differentiation and cancer. His laboratory identified many of the replication initiation proteins in human cells, used genomics technology to identify hundreds of origins of replication in human chromosomes, discovered a major mechanism by which human cells prevent over-replication of their DNA, and identified a novel class of circular DNA present in normal mammalian cells. His laboratory has also discovered microRNAs that promote differentiation and microRNAs, tRFs and long noncoding RNAs that regulate cancer progression. He has trained over fifty scientists who continue research in academia or industry, and has received the following honors: Elected Fellow of the AAAS and of the AAP, Ranbaxy Award for studies on genome instability and two awards from the American Society for Investigative Pathology: Outstanding Investigator Award and the Rous-Whipple Award for a distinguished career in research.
Publications from lab in Google Scholar.
Publications from lab in Google Scholar.
Latest News
Oct 2024: Congratulations to Divya Sahu and Isaac Segura and other on paper on polygenic score for predicting outcome in breast cancers in npj Precision Oncology. Please read here.
Mar-July 2024: Two new postdoctoral fellows join the lab, Dr. Aaiyas Mujawar from ACTREC, Mumbai and Dr. Kumarjeet Banerjee from IACS, Kolkata
June 2024: Welcome Haley Katz who has joined to do her Ph.D. in the lab
May 2024: Congratulations to Sarmad Mehmood for delivering an oral presentation at the Jackson Laboratory meeting on Long-read sequencing.
May 2024: Congratulations to Xiaoxiao Hao on giving an oral presentation at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory meeting on Non-coding RNAs.
April 2024: eLife paper on origins and ORC binding sites in human cells. Congratulations, Mengxue, Zhangli and the Shibatas. Please read it here.
Aug 2023: Rishi K. Devulapalli joins Dutta Lab as PhD candidate. Welcome Rishi!
Jul 2023: Dr. Zhangli Su starts her independent laboratory as a tenure-track Asst. Prof. in the Dept. of Genetics, UAB. Congratulations! Her lab website can be found here.
May 2023: Our paper “XRN2 suppresses aberrant entry of tRNA trailers into argonaute in humans and Arabidopsis” is now published in PLOS Genetics. Congratulations to Briana and co-authors.
April 2023: Dr. Dutta elected to the Association of American Physicians (https://aap-online.org/).
April 2023: Dr. Kiran Kumar Reddi joins Dutta Lab as Postdoc. Welcome Kiran!
March 2023: The lab welcomes Haley and Samira to join as rotation student.
Dec 2022: Congratulations to Dr. Briana Wilson for successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis and returning to medical school for the MD part of her MD, PhD.
Dec 2022: The lab welcomes alumnus Roza and her family to visit UAB and celebrate lab holiday party with us : ))
Sep 2022: Rishi and Afsane successfully presented their poster at the UAB Medical Student Research Day. Zhangli, Divya and Kendall presented their research at the UAB Postdoc Symposium.
Sep 2022: The lab celebrates Labor Day together (thanks to Xiaoxiao and Yuechuan for hosting)! The lab welcomes Xinyue and Javeed as rotation students, and Jayden from UAB Honors College (working with Zhangli).
Aug 2022: Congratulations to Xiaoxiao for winning the Best Poster Award at the UAB GBS symposium!
Aug 2022: The lab welcomes Afsane to join as a PhD candidate and Kendall Walton from UAB-HudsonAlpha Medical Genomics Postdoc Training Program.
July 2022: Our eccDNA circle-finder protocol was highlighted as the 22 methods most used by Bio-protocol's community last year. Please read about it on bio protocol here.
June 2022: Congratulations to Zhangli for winning RNA Society Poster Award at the 27th Annual Meeting of the RNA Society in Boulder, CO!!!
June 2022: We present a new web tool that uses machine learning for predicting target sites of tRNA-derived fragments - tRForest. This work was co-led by Rohan and Bri, and is now published in NAR Genome Bioinformatics.
May 2022: "TRMT6/61A-dependent base methylation of tRNA-derived fragments regulates gene-silencing activity and the unfolded protein response in bladder cancer" is now published in Nature Communications and is highlighted by UAB News and Featured Discovery. Congratulations to Zhangli and co-authors!
April 2022: Want to know more about Function and Therapeutic Implications of tRNA Derived Small RNAs? Check out Bri's review article!
April 2022: Interested to identify germline variants correlated with cancer? Please read the STAR Protocol written by Divya and co-authors!
March 2022: The lab welcomes Stephen Hurst to join as a PhD candidate, Shruti Kapoor and Sarmad Mehmood to join as Postdoc. Looking forward to great discoveries along your way!
Jan 2022: The structure-function analysis on promyogenic lncRNA MUNC is published in Cell Reports and is highlighted by UAB News. This work was led by Roza and done in collaboration with Kevin Weeks' lab at UNC.