Barbara Dirac Svejstrup

Barbara Dirac Svejstrup is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. She is a key member of the Transcription, RNA, and Gene Medicine Program where she conducts cutting-edge research at the intersection of transcription mechanisms and genome integrity.

Her primary research interests focus on the molecular mechanisms of transcription and how this essential cellular process interfaces with other DNA-related processes such as DNA repair, replication, and recombination. Dr. Svejstrup investigates how transcription both depends on and threatens genome stability, with particular emphasis on transcript elongation in human cells. Her work has significant implications for understanding cancer development, as deregulated gene expression and unstable genomes are hallmarks of cancer cells.

Through a unique combination of biochemical, genetic, and cell biological techniques, her laboratory studies transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair (TC-NER), RNA polymerase II ubiquitylation, and the broader transcriptional response to DNA damage. Recent publications demonstrate her expertise in areas such as RNA polymerase II termination, CDK kinase activity in transcript elongation, and DNA-protein crosslink repair mechanisms.

Dr. Svejstrup's research has revealed important insights into how Cockayne syndrome B (CSB) protein functions in DNA repair, the role of ubiquitin-binding domains in repair activation, and mechanisms for clearing stalled RNA polymerase complexes. Her multi-omic approaches including quantitative SILAC proteomics and genome-wide sequencing techniques have uncovered numerous new factors involved in the transcription-related DNA damage response.