Cancer

From Risk Variants to Genes: Understanding Endometrial Cancer Susceptibility

Can be adapted in scope for Honours, Masters or PhD student.

Project Supervisors

Associate Professor Tracy O’Mara

Team Head

Dylan Glubb

Senior Research Officer

Background

We and our international Endometrial Cancer Association Consortium collaborators have identified a number of endometrial cancer risk regions in the genome. Although we have identified potentially causal risk variants, the target genes at most regions remain unknown. To address this, we have profiled the regulatory landscape of these loci using gene expression, chromatin accessibility, chromatin looping, and single-cell multiomic data from endometrial cell lines, organoid models, and tumour samples. These datasets will allow us to identify and prioritise candidate susceptibility genes for functional validation.


Aim

To identify high confidence gene regulatory targets of endometrial cancer risk variants using functional genomic datasets and validate these using CRISPR approaches


Project Potential

Through the identification of endometrial cancer risk genes, we will gain a deeper understanding of endometrial cancer aetiology and identify potential targets for endometrial cancer therapy.



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Interested in applying?
Contact the supervisors below.