5hydroxymethylcytosine marks sites of damaged DNA and is required for genome stability

Mater Research would like to welcome Dr Georgia Kafer from The Institute for CellMaterial Sciences (iCeMS) at Kyoto University to deliver a special seminar at TRI on the 30th August. 

There will be a light lunch from 12 noon prior to the seminar courtesy of Mater Research.

Speaker Bio

In 2011, after completing my PhD on dynamic changes in histone variants during preimplantation development at the University of Queensland (UQ), I was appointed as an associate lecturer in cell and developmental biology at the School of Biomedical Sciences (UQ).

In 2012 I won a competitive JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship to undertake research at The Institute for CellMaterial Sciences (iCeMS) in Kyoto Japan. I worked under the mentorship of Prof. Norio Nakatsuji and was based in the laboratory of A/Prof. Peter Carlton. During this time I developed skills relating to the culture and differentiation of human embryonic stem cells and the use of high and super resolution microscopes. Here I made some interesting discoveries relating to the dynamics of modified histones at early stages of differentiation that specifically correlate to a loss of pluripotency.

In 2014, at the conclusion of my fellowship, I began my second postdoc working in the lab of A/Prof. Peter Carlton where I began to use Cas9/CRISPR technology to investigate DNA methylation. I am still based here and have two ongoing research projects. The first investigate the role of DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation in DNA damage pathways of cancer cells and stem cells. The second project is in collaboration with A/Prof. KenIchiro Kamei and involves growing trophoblast like cells differentiated from human embryonic stem cells on 3D PDMS substrates in an attempt to recapitulate placental villi in vitro to generate an ethical model for human placental development and function.