Thesis Title: Single-Molecule Studies of Rad4-Rad23 Reveal a Dynamic DNA Damage Recognition Process
Graduation: June 30, 2017
Research Interests:
Our lab studies the nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway in DNA repair. Ben's thesis project looked at the mechanism of DNA damage recognition by yeast NER protein Rad4-Rad23, using single-molecule techniques such as our DNA tightrope assay with quantum dot labeled proteins, as well as atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Education:
B.A. Physics, Knox College 2008
M.S. Physics, CMU 2010
PhD Advisor: Dr. Bennet Van Houten
Current Location: postdoc in Eric Greene lab, Columbia University (New York, NY) (per Oct 2017)
Email: muwenkon{AT}pitt.edu
Publications:
- Van Houten, B., and Kong, M. (2015) Eukaryotic Nucleotide Excision Repair, in Encyclopedia of Cell Biology, edited by Ralph A. Bradshaw and Philip D. Stahl, Academic Press.
- Kong M, Liu L, Chen X, Drisöhmcoll KI, Mao P, B S, Kad NM, Watkins SC, Bernstein KA, Wyrick JJ, Min JH, Van Houten B. Single-Molecule Imaging Reveals that Rad4 Employs a Dynamic DNA Damage Recognition Process. Mol Cell. 2016 Oct 20;64(2):376-387
- Kong M, Van Houten B. Rad4 recognition-at-a-distance: Physical basis of conformation-specific anomalous diffusion of DNA repair proteins. Prog Biophys Mol Biol. 2017 Aug;127:93-104
- Luo J, Kong M, Liu L, Samanta S, Van Houten B, Deiters A. Optical Control of DNA Helicase Function through Genetic Code Expansion. Chembiochem. 2017;18(5):466-469
- Kong M, Beckwitt EC, Springall L, Kad NM, Van Houten B. Single-Molecule Methods for Nucleotide Excision Repair: Building a System to Watch Repair in Real Time. Methods in Enzymology, DNA Repair Enzymes, Part B, Volume 592, Academic Press, 2017, 592: 213-257
- Beckwitt E, Kong M, Van Houten B. Studying Protein-DNA Interactions Using Atomic Force Microscopy. Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2017 Jun 30. pii: S1084-9521(17)30127-1
- Liu L, Kong M, Gassman NR, Freudenthal BD, Prasad R, Zhen S, Watkins SC, Wilson SH, Van Houten B. PARP1 changes from three-dimensional DNA damage searching to one-dimensional diffusion after auto-PARylation or in the presence of APE1. Nucleic Acids Res. 2017 45(22):12834-12847
