= Michelle Hawkins
{c}
<Michelle Hawkins> is a researcher in <DNA replication>, including the initiation and completion of copying <chromosomes>. In a 2013 study, <Michelle Hawkins> and collaborators tested whether the usual <origin of replication> sites were indispensable in the archaeon <Haloferax volcanii>. Deleting all four known chromosomal <origin of replication> sites in their laboratory strain did not stop growth: under the tested conditions the resulting cells grew faster than the strain retaining the sites.<Accelerated growth in the absence of DNA replication origins by Michelle Hawkins and others>[Abstract and main text: deletion of four origins in the laboratory chromosome, replication profiles and competition experiments]{ref}
The finding illustrates why a familiar mechanism need not be the only possible mechanism. Measurements of <DNA> abundance along the <chromosome> showed a dispersed pattern of <DNA replication> after origin deletion, and the origin-free strain depended on <homologous recombination>. Together these observations support initiation associated with <homologous recombination> rather than obligatory firing at the deleted <origin of replication> sites. They establish an alternative in this experimental <Haloferax volcanii> background, rather than a general dispensability of <origin of replication> sites in every organism.<Accelerated growth in the absence of DNA replication origins by Michelle Hawkins and others>[Main text: origin-free replication and recombination dependence; Nature 503, 544–547, 2013]{ref}
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