Prof Magnar Bjørås is leading the research group of Cellular responses to DNA damage at Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim and at Oslo University Hospital/University of Oslo. Major focus of his research has been on repair of endogenous DNA base lesion repair and genome stability. He has made major contributions to characterization of many new DNA repair enzymes from bacteria, yeast and mammalian. He has established research on the role of DNA base lesion repair in neurodegeneration, cognition and behavior, revealing functions beyond canonical DNA base lesion repair. Furthermore, he has collaborations with clinicians studying the impact of DNA repair on infectious disease, heart failure and cancer. His research on bacterial stress responses, the type I bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems has revealed functions of small peptides in regulation of membrane activities, and their potential as antibiotics.