In this video, learn more about Aziz Sancar, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemisty for 2015.

Aziz Sancar, MD, PhD, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the UNC School of Medicine has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his groundbreaking work in mapping DNA repair.

The new experimental assay can help scientists find the precise locations of repair of DNA damage caused by UV radiation and common chemotherapies. The invention could lead to better cancer drugs or improvements in the potency of existing ones.

Sixteen years after scientists found the genes that control the circadian clock in all cells, the lab of UNC’s Aziz Sancar, MD, PhD, discovered the mechanisms responsible for keeping the clock in sync.

The paper titled "Mechanism of Photosignaling by Drosophila Cryptochrome: Role of the Redox Status of the Flavin Chromophore" appears in the February 21, 2014 print edition of The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Circadian control of skin cancer. Image courtesy of Marian Miller (University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH). Upper left quadrant: Hourtide by Edward Henry Potthast, 1920; Lower left quadrant: Sleeping Woman by Felix Valloton, 1899.

Exposure to UV radiation triggers DNA lesions that can lead to skin cancer, the most common type of cancer in the United States. Previous studies in mice have shown that levels of a protein called XPA, involved in repairing UV-induced DNA lesions, waxes and wanes with the time of day. Shobhan Gaddameedhi et al. found that the protein's level and activity in mouse skin cells are at their lowest at 4 AM and their highest at 4PM.

Sancar lab featured From the Cover of the November 15, 2011 issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA

From the cover of JBC issue July 22, 2011

On the JBC Cover: The circadian clock is the internal timekeeping molecular system that generates a daily rhythm in an organism's physiology and behavior.

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The Man Behind the Nobel Prize

Aziz Sancar receives 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

UNC researchers create DNA repair map of the entire human genome

Sancar lab finds final pieces to the circadian clock puzzle

Sancar lab manuscript selected as “Paper of the Week” by JBC

Sancar lab featured on “In This Issue” of PNAS, published on November 15, 2011

Sancar lab featured on the cover of PNAS

Sancar lab featured on the cover of JBC published on July 22, 2011