Julien Duxin

Current position
2016–:

Associate professor and group leader, CPR, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Previous positions
2012–2016:

Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Advisor: Johannes C. Walter

Education
2005–2011:

PhD in Biochemistry, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA. Advisor: Sheila Stewart

2000–2004:

BSc in Chemistry, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, USA

Julien Duxin’s research focuses in understanding basic mechanisms of genome maintenance using Xenopus egg extracts as a model system. Particularly, he studies how DNA lesions induced by chemotherapeutic agents are repaired. This has led to the first system that recapitulates DNA-protein crosslink (DPCs) repair in vitro (Duxin et al. Cell, 2014). This initial discovery opened an entire new area of investigation, highly relevant to human health as DPC-inducers are commonly used in the clinic to treat cancer. Julien’s lab is now investigating how DPC-repair is intrinsically linked to DNA replication and interrogating which are the main players orchestrating the repair reaction (Larsen et al. Molecular Cell, 2018). His ultimate goal is to unravel new molecular mechanisms of DNA repair and identify novel chemotherapeutic targets that could be used in the clinic to sensitize patients to commonly used anti-cancer drugs.