Professor Mary Hatcher-Skeers
Awarded NIH Grant for DNA Research

Mary Hatcher-Skeers, associate professor of chemistry for the Joint Science department, has been awarded a grant of $170,000 from the National Institute of Health for further research into her studies of DNA dynamics, specifically DNA sequences linked with cancer.
To study the dynamics of these sequences, Hatcher-Skeers uses nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, NMR, to observe how the DNA behaves. Funding from the grant over the next several years will enable further study of additional DNA sequences and the development of better methods to observe DNA.
With help from students in the Joint Science department, Hatcher-Skeers' most current research is examining how DNA switches back and forth between two energy forms (dynamic equilibrium) and becomes locked into a higher energy form upon cytosine methylation.
Hatcher-Skeers is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego. She earned her master's degree from San Francisco State University, and her doctorate from the University of Washington.