Penny Jeggo

Honorary Member 2022

Penelope (Penny) A. Jeggo graduated in microbiology at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London and obtained a PhD in Genetics in Robin Holliday’s laboratory at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London. She then undertook Post Doctoral fellowships with John Cairns at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Miroslav Radman at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, before returning in 1980 to Robin Holliday’s laboratory and commencing work on the DNA damage responses in mammalian cells. In 1989 she moved to the MRC’s Cell Mutation Unit at the University of Sussex and when the Unit closed in 2001 became a founding member of the Genome Damage and Stability Centre (GDSC) at the University of Sussex. She became a Professorial Fellow of the University of Sussex in 2003. Prof Jeggo’s early work focused on studying DNA damage responses in lower organisms but subsequently focused on the process of DNA double strand break (DSB) repair in mammalian cells. She isolated radiosensitive, DSB-repair defective (Xrs) mutants from the CHO cell line, which have been exploited by many colleagues to study DNA DSB. In 2004 the Xrs mutants were shown to be mutated in Ku80, identifying the first gene involved in DNA non homologous end joining (NHEJ) as well as the development of the immune response. Subsequently, she showed that the gene mutated in the Severe Combined Immunodeficient (SCID) mouse encodes the DNA dependent protein kinase, DNA-PKcs, which together with Ku forms the DNA-PK complex. These findings consolidated the notion that in mammalian cells DSBs are repaired by a process distinct from homologous recombination and paved the way for our understanding of NHEJ. They also revealed the important role that NHEJ plays during immune development. A search for radiosensitive immunodeficient patients led to the identification of LIG4 Syndrome, the first of several human disorders with combined defects in DNA DSB repair and V(D)J recombination. Work in the GDSC contributes to the diagnosis of such patients, which is important for the optimisation of their care and treatment. Throughout her research career, Penny has had a deep interest in radiation biology, radiation protection and the exploitation of radiation for radiotherapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Penny has served as a member of an international laboratory at the National Institute for Radiation Science in Chiba, Japan. She has been a member of ICRP and AGIR subgroups evaluating radiation effects, a member of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), participated in the MELODI programme and was a previous chair of UK’s ARR. She has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the EMF Biological Research Trust and CRUK’s Science Funding Committee. She has been elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. She is on the Editorial board of several journals including DNA Repair and International Journal of Radiation Biology. She has more than 200 publications. She believes a career in science can be fun and rewarding and is keen to aid the advancement of scientists in training (SITS) and women in science.

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