Q&A with Dr. Elizabeth Brunk: Leveraging AI and Single Cell Imaging to Prevent Harmful DNA Changes in Cancer

You likely learned in school that your DNA is housed in chromosomes, tiny packages of genetic material that make you who you are, the blueprints for your body. But what you might not have learned is that there is another kind of DNA that lives outside your chromosomes, and cancer cells can take advantage of this extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) to drive tumor growth and make the disease harder to treat.

Elizabeth Brunk, MSc, PhD, an assistant professor of pharmacology and chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is pioneering a novel approach to identify and target harmful ecDNA adaptations to guide better strategies for treating cancer.

Brunk received a PhRMA Foundation 2025 Faculty Starter Grant in Drug Discovery for her work integrating artificial intelligence with single cell imaging to analyze how cells adapt and alter their ecDNA in response to therapeutics.

The goal is to target and prevent these harmful ecDNA changes, thus improving patient treatment responses and advancing durable treatments. Watch this video to learn more about Brunk and her research.

This video includes b-roll from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Computational Medicine Program, courtesy of UNC-Chapel Hill and KathASK Films, LLC. View full video.

Learn more about the PhRMA Foundation’s fellowship and grant opportunities. Check out more researcher stories on our blog.