Munira A. Basrai

Genetics Branch
The Center for Cancer Research
United States of America

Scientist Genetics
Biography

Dr. Basrai received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and did her postdoctoral research with Dr. Philip Hieter in the jDepartment of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland. Dr. Basrai joined the Genetics Branch at the NCI in 1998 and was promoted to tenure in 2006. Her research interests are genome stability and cell cycle regulation in yeast and human cancers. Dr. Basrai co-chairs the Cell Cycle Interest Group since 2005 and serves on the steering committee for the Center of Excellence of Chromosome Biology (CECB) since 2007. Dr. Basrai served on the Cancer Advisory Board for three years (2008-2011). Dr. Basrai has received the NIH Director’s Award and the NIH Award for Outstanding Mentorship towards the education of post-baccalaureate trainees. Her trainees have recieved numerous awards such as NIH Fellows Award for Excellence in Research and exceptional pay increase.  

Research Intrest

Cancer Biology, Chromosome Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Systems Biology 

List of Publications
Boeckmann L, Takahashi Y, Au W, Mishra PK, Choy JS, et al. (2013) Phosphorylation of centromeric histone H3 variant regulates chromosome segregation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol. Biol. Cell. 24: 2034-44.
Mishra PK, Guo J, Dittman LE, Haase J, Yeh E, et al. (2015) Pat1 protects centromere-specific histone H3 variant Cse4 from Psh1-mediated ubiquitination. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 26: American Society of Cell Biology 2067-79.
Ohkuni K, Takahashi Y, Fulp A, Lawrimore J, Au WC, et al. (2016) SUMO-Targeted Ubiquitin Ligase (STUbL) Slx5 regulates proteolysis of centromeric histone H3 variant Cse4 and prevents its mislocalization to euchromatin. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 27: American Society of Cell Biology 1500-1510.
Mishra PK, Ciftci-Yilmaz S, Reynolds D, Au WC, Boeckmann L, et al. (2016) Polo kinase Cdc5 associates with centromeres to facilitate the removal of centromeric cohesin during mitosis. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 27: 2286-2300.