Paras Gaur is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar and his research addresses a key puzzle in genome biology: how cells selectively recognize and process G-quadruplex (G4) DNA structures, non-canonical secondary structures that regulate transcription and replication but can also obstruct DNA synthesis and compromise genome stability, especially in cancer.

He earned his Ph.D. as a prestigious Stipendium Hungaricum Scholar at the Biological Research Center in Hungary. During his graduate training under Dr. Lajos Haracska, he focused on development of a suite of high-throughput, luminescence-based assays designed to mechanistically dissect the enzymatic cascade governing PCNA ubiquitination.

In Spies Lab, Paras employs state-of-the-art single-molecule techniques; specifically, smTIRFM (single-molecule Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy) and Mass Photometry (MP) to dissect the real-time dynamics of G4 unwinding and replication at the single-molecule level.

Outside the lab, Paras enjoys traveling, cooking, gardening, and working on his fish tanks.

Key Publications:

Gaur P, Bain FE, Meah R, Spies M. Single-molecule analysis of PARP1 and G-quadruplex interaction. bioRxiv. 2025 Jan 8. PMCID PMC11741300.
Link https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.06.631587v1

Gaur P, Bain FE, Honda M, Granger SL, Spies M. Single molecule analysis of improved variants of the G-quadruplex recognition protein G4P. Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jun 17. 24(12). PMCID PMC10299155.
Link https://www.mdpi.com/2346924

Honda M, Razzaghi M, Gaur P, Malacaria E, Marozzi G, Di Biagi L, Aiello FA, Paintsil EA, Stanfield AJ, Deppe BJ, Gakhar L, Schnicker NJ, Spies MA, Pichierri P, Spies M. The RAD52 double ring remodels replication forks restricting fork reversal. Nature. 2025 May. 641(8062). 512-519. PMID 40175552.
Link https://rdcu.be/eQDR1

Granger SL, Sharma R, Kaushik V, Razzaghi M, Honda M, Gaur P, Bhat DS, Labenz SM, Heinen JE, Williams BA, Tabei SMA, Wlodarski MW, Antony E, Spies M. Human hnRNPA1 reorganizes telomere bound replication protein A. Nucleic Acids Res. 2024 Nov 11. 52(20). 12422-12437. PMCID PMC11551749.
Link https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkae834

For the full list of publications, check Google Scholar.