Our lab investigates epigenetic mechanisms operating at the boundary between normal and cancer, with the aim to discover preventive interventions before cancer takes hold. We use in vivo mouse models and ex vivo cellular systems and focus on physiological outputs of disease promoting epigenetic changes.
Saunderson EA, Encabo HH, Devis J, Rouault-Pierre K, Piganeau M, Bell CG, Gribben JG, Bonnet D, Ficz G (2023) "CRISPR/dCas9 DNA methylation editing is heritable during human hematopoiesis and shapes immune progeny", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120:e2300224120 (PMID: 37579157)
Patani H, Rushton MD, Higham J, Teijeiro SA, Oxley D, Cutillas P, Sproul D, Ficz G (2020) "Transition to naïve human pluripotency mirrors pan-cancer DNA hypermethylation", Nature Communications, 11:3671 (PMID: 32699299)
Saunderson EA, Stepper P, Gomm J, Morgan A, Hoa L, Allen M, Jones L, Gribben J, Jurkowski T, Ficz G (2017) "Hit-and-run epigenetic editing prevents senescence entry in primary breast myoepithelial cells from healthy donors", Nature Communications, 8:1450 (PMID: 29133799)
Ficz G, Hore TA, Santos F, Lee HJ, Dean W, Arand J, Krueger F, Oxley D, Paul Y, Walter J, Cook SJ, Andrews S, Branco MR, Reik W (2013) "FGF Signaling Inhibition in ESCs Drives Rapid Genome-wide Demethylation to the Epigenetic Ground State of Pluripotency", Cell Stem Cell, 13:351-9 (PMID: 23850245)