Clare Stirzaker Email & Phone Number

Group Leader - Epigenetic Deregulation in Cancer, Epigenetic Research Laboratory, Genomics and Epigenetics Division, Garvan Institute of Medical ResearchSenior Research OfficerConjoint Associate Professor, St Vincent's Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW AustraliaClare became fascinated by the field of Epigenetics and joined the group of Prof Susan Clark as a post-doc at the Kanematsu Laboratories, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, in Sydney and later, at the Sydney Cancer Centre at Sydney University. The group moved to the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in 2004, where an Epigenetics Group was established within the Cancer Program. Clare has since established her own group, which is focused on understanding "Epigenetic Deregulation in Cancer."Clare has played a major role in delivery of many of the milestones in epigenetic research. She has made highly significant contributions to the field of DNA methylation and epigenetic deregulation in cancer and has also played an integral role in developing new epigenetic technologies, including ongoing optimization of bisulphite sequencing for DNA methylation analysis which is the “gold standard” method for DNA methylation analysis, chromatin immunoprecipitation, RNA-seq, and the development of genome-wide analysis of methylated DNA and chromatin modifications by next-generation sequencing. Clare's research interest has focused on mapping epigenetic deregulation in cancer, focusing on breast and prostate cancer. The group has made significant contributions to the discovery of Long Range Epigenetic deregulation in cancer, including regional gene silencing and activation. A focus of the group has been to understand the mechanism underlying aberrant DNA methylation. The group has also played a key role in methylation profiling in breast cancer, discovering methylation clusters of clinical value for the development of biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets.