Godek Laboratory

We are interested in understanding how cells maintain genomic fidelity and how a lack of fidelity contributes to human diseases and conditions. Specifically, we study aneuploidy, an abnormal number of chromosomes, that is caused by meiotic or mitotic chromosome segregation errors during cell divisions. Our two main areas of focus are cancer and development. In cancer approximately 90% of solid tumors are aneuploid and during human development aneuploidy is the leading cause of miscarriages and birth defects. However, for both cancer and development, the mechanisms responsible for and the consequences of aneuploidy are incompletely understood. We use a variety of model systems, including cancer cells and human pluripotent stem cells, and a broad range of biochemical, microscopy, genomic, and chemical techniques to investigate unanswered questions. Using our discoveries, our goal is to develop novel strategies to prevent aneuploidy and treat aneuploidy associated pathologies.

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A pluripotent developmental state confers a low fidelity of chromosome segregation.
Deng C, Ya A, Compton DA, and Godek KM
bioRxiv. 2022; 2022.03.01.482524

Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals the impact of chromosomal instability on glioblastoma cancer stem cells.
Zhao Y, Carter R, Natarajan S, Varn FS, Compton DA, Gawad C, Cheng C, and Godek KM
BMC Medical Genomics. 12:79 (2019).

Chromosomal instability affects the tumorigenicity of glioblastoma tumor-initiating cells.
Godek KM, Venere M, Wu Q, Mills KD, Hickey WF, Rich JN, and Compton DA
Cancer Disc. 6:532-45 (2016).

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