Faculty Highlights

faculty gathering outside Tufts new Science and Engineering Complex

Academic Year 2024-2025

Professor Catherine Freudenreich’s recent work on APOBEC3A and Huntington’s Disease
Tufts Now features a profile on Professor Catherine Freudenreich, highlighting her recent research showing that APOBEC enzymes—proteins typically involved in combating viral infections by mutating viral DNA—may also contribute to genetic changes linked to Huntington’s disease. These enzymes cause repeat expansions and exhibit unusual activity in the brains of Huntington’s patients.

Her recent research, including a paper published in PNAS, titled "APOBEC3A deaminates CTG hairpin loops to promote fragility and instability of expanded CAG/CTG repeats," read it here!

This week's issue of Tufts Now features a profile on Professor Sarah Hengel and highlights her recent research, including two papers focused on how the Shu complex helps protect cells from DNA damage.

Biology Professor of the Practice, Dr. Frank David co-authored a new paper published in the journal JAMA Oncology "Cancer Drug Access and Innovation Under the Inflation Reduction Act—A Balancing Act". In the article, Dr. David and his co-author, Dr. Stacie Dusetzina of Vanderbilt, analyze the potential impacts of the IRA on oncology drug pricing and access for Medicare beneficiaries.

The Department of Biology welcomes a new faculty members, in Fall 2024:
Fatima Aysha Hussain is a microbial ecologist with a background in environmental engineering and women’s and gender studies. She earned her PhD at MIT, where she studied the ecology and evolution of prophages and phage defense elements in marine bacterial populations. Currently, she is a Research Scientist and Schmidt Science Fellow at the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard, where she designs genomically and ecologically informed microbial therapies for vaginal health by investigating bacteria-bacteria and bacteria-phage interactions. This fall, Fatima will be joining Tufts as an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department, bringing her passion for microbes, phages, and vaginal health. The new Hussain Lab will focus on the phage-driven evolution of the vaginal microbiome.