Enhancer RNAs as Bait: Fishing for subtype-specific transcription factor signalling in breast cancers

About the speaker

Dr Sankari Nagarajan

Dr. Sankari Nagarajan is a breast cancer research scientist investigating the transcriptional regulation of disease progression in breast cancers. She completed her Integrated M.Sc. in Bio-Medical Science at Bharathidasan University, Trichy, India. After obtaining a prestigious and competitive PhD scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), she moved to the University of Göttingen, Germany, to work with Prof. Dr. Steven A. Johnsen. Her PhD research on the epigenetic reader protein BRD4 in ER+ breast cancers introduced the possibility of using Bromodomain and Extraterminal domain-containing protein (BET) inhibitors as a therapeutic strategy against breast cancers. This work was recognized with the Best PhD Award from the Göttingen Graduate Center for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences.

As a Research Associate at the CRUK Cambridge Institute with Prof. Jason Carroll, Dr. Nagarajan employed genome-wide CRISPR-based drug resistance screens and functional genomic approaches (ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, RNA-seq) to uncover a novel role for the SWI/SNF chromatin remodelling complex and its subunit ARID1A in controlling endocrine treatment response. In recognition of these achievements, she was promoted to Senior Research Associate at the CRUK Cambridge Institute.

Dr. Nagarajan later moved to Manchester to begin her first Principal Investigator position in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Function. Building on CRISPR screening findings, she developed an independent grant proposal focused on chromatin architecture proteins in ER+ breast cancers, which was awarded a Career Establishment Award by Cancer Research UK.

At the University of Manchester, Dr. Nagarajan leads a research laboratory that expands on her expertise in chromatin remodelling and breast cancer epigenetics. Her lab applies CRISPR-Cas9 systems and single-cell epigenomic approaches to explore a new research direction: understanding enhancer evolution during endocrine resistance and metastatic progression in aggressive cancers.