The 1st Basic Epigenetic Mechanisms in Cancer conference was held in Berlin last month, organised by the European Association for Cancer Research.
Our postdoctoral researcher from the Centre for Haemato-Oncology, Dr Emily Saunderson, attended the event as both a delegate and reporter. She produced a comprehensive summary of the meeting for the epigenetics-focused organisation EpiGenie.
She said:
"The talks and posters provided fascinating insights into the hottest new data in epigenetics and cancer research. The main themes focused on understanding the role of enhancers and related RNAs in cancer development, the links between epigenetics and genome stability, and discovering new drug targets by understanding the function of epigenetic modifiers."
Emily's research project is focused on understanding the earliest stages of how cells "transform" into breast cancer and whether epigenetic alterations at specific genes (i.e. changes to our genes that are not mutations in the DNA itself) are significant.
This project uses a novel form of the CRISPR/Cas9 system that allows DNA methylation to be targeted to regions of interest in the genome, such as tumour suppressors, so that we can switch them off and find out whether they can potentially drive cellular transformation when they are silenced.
She said:
"This conference will be an excellent place for me to present my research as the invited speakers are among the key players in the epigenetics and cancer field. I’m confident that this will help to develop the biological questions we trying to address, as well as help to guide this work.
I will have the opportunity to discuss my aims and achievements with my peers, and see the exciting novel work happening at other institutions locally and internationally. Presenting and receiving feedback on this work will hopefully highlight strengths and weaknesses of my project."
Emily was awarded travel grants from EpiGenie and The Biochemical Society to attend this meeting.
"In summary, this was a successful meeting that gave an overview of the many ways that the epigenome and epigenetic modifiers influence the aberrant processes involved in cancer formation. It also offered insights into how, by broadening our understanding of how basic epigenetic regulation is controlled, we can hope to discover new druggable enzymes and pathways to combat this disease."
You can read the full summary here.
About EpiGenie:
"EpiGenie is a team of folks who scour through PubMed, watch out for interesting epigenetics press releases, conduct interviews with epigenetics researchers, and work closely with the technology providers to stay on top of the most applicable work driving epigenetics-related research."
The 1st Basic Epigenetic Mechanisms in Cancer conference was held in Berlin last month, organised by the European Association for Cancer Research.
Our postdoctoral researcher from Dr Gabi Ficz's research group, Dr Emily Saunderson, attended the event as both a delegate and reporter. She produced a comprehensive summary of the meeting for the epigenetics-focused organisation EpiGenie.