If you have a soft spot for unsung heroes, you’ll love a DNA repair protein called XPG. Berkeley Lab scientists discovered that XPG plays a previously unknown and critical role helping to maintain genome stability in human cells. Their findings also raise the possibility that the protein helps prevent breast, ovarian, and other cancers associated with defective BRCA genes.

The work, which is published online January 28 in the journal Molecular Cell, indicates XPG is essential to our health in ways far beyond it’s been given credit for.

Priscilla Cooper of the Biological Systems and Engineering Division conducted the research with Kelly Trego and several others at Berkeley Lab, as well as scientists from Colorado State University, Yale University, and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Read more at the Berkeley Lab News Center.