Cancer Epigenetics Lab | Professor Mark Dawson

It is now clear that the most common class of genes mutated in cancer are epigenetic regulators involved in the control of gene expression, DNA repair and replication. As the epigenome is high dynamic, epigenetic regulators have been identified as important therapeutic targets in cancer.

In the Cancer Epigenetics Lab, researchers aim to understand the role of epigenetic regulators in cell fate determination and self-renewal in normal and malignant stem cells. They aim to use these insights to identify novel therapies for the treatment of a range of haematological and solid cancers. The Cancer Epigenetics laboratory has broad expertise spanning biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, genomics, chemical biology, immunology, animal models of disease and bioinformatics. They use clinically relevant models to identify epigenetic regulators which are important for the initiation, maintenance and progression of haematological and solid tumours. The aim and ambition of the laboratory is to translate the discoveries in the laboratory into early-phase clinical trials.