Dr David Monk
Senior Lecturer in Biomedicine
Dave’s research is centred on understanding epigenetic mechanisms relevant to human diseases, focusing on the application of high-throughput genome technologies to characterize global DNA methylation profiles and more specifically, genomic imprinting. In particular, his studies have addressed the role of germline-derived monoallelic methylation in common cancers and specific developmental disorders with high incidence of childhood tumors. His recent research has focused on:
- Determining the interplay between copy-number variants and allelic methylation at imprinting loci in common solid tumors.
- Characterizing the role of chromosome 11 copy-number neutral loss-of-heterozygosity (cnnLOH) in Rhabdomyosarcomas.
- Determine the global methylation state in spontaneous Wilms tumours and those from patients with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome.
- Determining if over-expression of IGF2/miR483 and the concomitant decreased H19/miR-675 are driving events in cancer.
To utilize pharmacological agents and CRISPR interference (based on dCas9-fusions) to modify locus-specific methylation profiles to alter cell function.
Funders: MRC, BBSRC, EU H2020