As a shared PhD student between David Adams (Experimental Cancer Genetics) and Steve Jackson (DNA repair), Mareike is looking at how mutations in DNA polymerases - the molecular machines that copy and duplicate DNA - contribute to tumorigenesis. The aim is to understand which mutations promote cancers, to what extent and why. This work uses classical genetics as well as next generation sequencing technologies to examine these mutations in model systems such as S. cerevisiae and cultured human cells. Beyond that, she contributes to a variety of projects on DNA repair genetics and genome stability by analysing next generation sequencing data and providing other bioinformatical analysis.