Logo for University of Iowa Health Care This logo represents the University of Iowa Health Care

Anna Malkova, PhD

Associate Professor of Biology

anna-malkova@uiowa.edu 
319-384-1285

Biography

Anna Malkova graduated from St. Petersburg State University (St. Petersburg, Russia) with a BS in 1982. She then obtained her Ph.D (Biology) from the same University in 1993. In 1993 she came to the United States for her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. James Haber, Brandeis University. Before joining the University of Iowa in 2014 as an Associate Professor in the Biology Department, Malkova was Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. 

Research Interest(s)

Dr. Malkova’s research is aimed to unravel mechanisms of DNA repair. In particular, she is interested in repair of double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs), which are dangerous because their imprecise or faulty repair often leads to mutations and chromosome aberrations that cause genetic diseases and cancer. Her research focuses on one pathway of DSB repair called Break-Induced Replication (BIR), which she described during her postdoctoral research at Brandeis University. BIR is similar to normal DNA replication in its processivity and rate, but the resulting repaired chromosome comes at a great cost to the cell, as BIR promotes mutagenesis, loss of heterozygosity, translocations, and copy number variations, all hallmarks of carcinogenesis. Despite the dramatic effects BIR can have on genetic stability, the mechanism of BIR responsible for its destabilizing effects, as well as its role in promoting genetic instabilities leading to cancer remain unclear. The aim of Malkova's research is to fill these gaps in our knowledge by investigating BIR in baking yeast, a model eukaryotic organism. The knowledge obtained in yeast will be used to analyze human cancer genomes to determine the role of BIR in promoting genomic instabilities leading to cancer.

Selected Publications.

Saini S., Ramakrishnan S. , Ayyar S. , Zhang Y. , Deem A. , Elango R. , Haber J. , Lobachev K., Malkova A. (2013). “Migrating bubble during break-induced replication drives conservative DNA synthesis.” Nature 502: 389-92.

Wilson MA., Kwon Y., Xu Y., Chung WH., Chi P., Niu H., Mayle R., Chen X., Malkova A., Sung P. & Ira G. (2013). Pif1 helicase and Polδ promote recombination-coupled DNA synthesis via bubble migration. Nature 502:393-6.

Malkova A., Ira G. (2013). Break-induced replication: functions and molecular mechanism. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 23: 271-9.

Villarreal D.D., Lee K., Deem A., Shim EY, Malkova A., and Lee S-E. (2012). “Microhomology directs diverse DNA break repair pathways and chromosomal translocations”. PLoS Genet. 8(11): e1003026.

Malkova A. and Haber J.E. (2012) “Mutations arising during repair of chromosomal breaks”. Annu.Rev.Genet. 46:455-473.

Deem A., Keszthelyi A., Blackgrove T., Vayl A., Coffey B., Mathur R., Chabes A. and Malkova, A. (2011). “Break-induced Replication is highly inaccurate”. PLoS Biol. 9(2):e1000594. Doi: 10. 1371/journal.pbio.1000594.

Westmoreland J, Ma W, Yan Y, Van Hulle K, Malkova A, Resnick MA. (2009). “RAD50 is required for efficient initiation of resection and recombinational repair at random, gamma-induced double-strand break ends”. PLoS Genet. 5:1-18.

Downing B., Morgan R., VanHulle K., Deem A., and Malkova A. (2008). “Large inverted repeats in the vicinity of a single double-strand break strongly affect repair in yeast diploids lacking Rad51” Mutation Research, 645:9-18.

Deem A., Barker K., VanHulle K., Downing B., Vayl A., and Malkova A. (2008) “Defective break-induced replication leads to half-crossovers in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.” Genetics, 179: 1845-1860.

VanHulle K., Lemoine F. J., Narayanan V., Downing B., Hull K., McCullough C., Bellinger M., Lobachev K., Petes T. D., and Malkova A. (2007). “Inverted DNA repeats channel repair of distant double-strand breaks into chromatid fusions and chromosomal rearrangements.” Mol. Cell. Biol., 27: 2601-2614.