Contact Information

• cclarkha@unca.edu

Research

My research interests lie in understanding “evolved solutions” to the challenges that organisms are subjected to. One such challenge is maintaining DNA stability when faced with genotoxic stress. Understanding how animals do this is an important and understudied area of biology. My current research program uses organisms that can survive extreme levels of radiation or desiccation to understand evolved mechanisms of exceptional DNA protection and repair.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are microscopic animals that are well known for their ability to survive extreme stresses including ionizing radiation, desiccation, and freezing. Tardigrades are easily found in many types of environments, ranging from the ocean to alpine slopes. They are also a great candidate to reveal mechanisms of exceptional genomic stability, as they can survive ~1000 times the dose of ionizing radiation that would be lethal to humans. Revealing the mechanisms that tardigrades employ to maintain DNA stability in the face of genotoxic stresses like ionizing radiation will help us gain a more comprehensive understanding of cell stress resistance.

My research seeks to involve students in discovering mechanisms of exceptional genome stability and provides students with the opportunity to engage with biological science in diverse ways, from field collection to molecular biology to coding. By expanding our knowledge of tardigrade ionizing radiation tolerance beyond traditionally used lab species, interrogating the gene expression changes that facilitate this tolerance, and exploring the mechanisms that tardigrades use to survive other genotoxic stresses, we will reveal evolved mechanisms of exceptional DNA protection and repair. This research will expand our understanding of the mechanisms that animals use to maintain DNA integrity under destructive conditions and can provide potential new routes forward to improving DNA stability in other systems.

Dr. Clark-Hachtel received her BA in Science Education from Miami University (Oxford, Oh) in 2012. She stayed at Miami University to complete her Ph.D. in evolutionary developmental biology (2018) where she studied the evolutionary origin of insect wings and used insects and a crustacean as model systems. Most recently Dr. Clark-Hachtel was a postdoctoral researcher at UNC Chapel Hill where she began working on understanding the mechanisms of ionizing radiation tolerance in the lab-reared tardigrade Hypsibius exemplaris.