Researcher

Aziz Sancar

Profile

Aziz Sancar is a Turkish-American biochemist at the University of North Carolina who shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich for their mechanistic studies of DNA repair. Sancar's contribution was the elucidation of nucleotide excision repair (NER), the DNA repair pathway that removes bulky DNA lesions such as UV-induced pyrimidine dimers and other helix-distorting adducts. He discovered and characterized photolyase enzymes that repair UV damage using light energy, and reconstituted the complete human NER system in vitro, identifying the approximately 30 proteins that collaborate to excise and replace damaged nucleotides. NER defects cause Xeroderma pigmentosum, a disorder of extreme sun sensitivity and high skin cancer risk. Sancar's research has also illuminated the circadian clock's role in regulating DNA repair efficiency, showing that NER activity oscillates throughout the day, with implications for optimally timing chemotherapy administration to maximize DNA damage in tumors while minimizing toxicity in normal tissues. This chronopharmacology insight is increasingly applied by oncologists and pharmaceutical companies in clinical trial design and dosing optimization.

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