PEBC Report - Programa de Epigenética y Biología del Cáncer

Dr Dave Monk
Genomic Imprinting and Cancer Group
David Monk (London, United Kingdom, 1975) graduated
from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge with a B.Sc (Hons)
in Biomedical science before undertaking an M.Sc in
Human Reproductive Biology at Imperial College London.
In 2001 he wrote his PhD thesis on the genetic aetiology of
Silver-Russell syndrome, a project mentored by Professors
Michael Preece and Gudrun Moore at Queen Charlotte’s
and Chelsea Hospital (QCCH), Imperial College London.
From 2001-2004 he was a Postdoctoral Researcher funded
by the MRC to screen for novel imprinted genes using
DNA methylation based technologies. This position was a
multi-site collaborative project, which saw him spend time in
the laboratories of Professor Moore, now at the Institute of
Reproductive and Developmental Biology (IRDB) Imperial
College London, Dr Gavin Kelsey at The Babraham Institute
Cambridge, and with Professor Jo Peters at MRC Harwell.
From 2005-2007, Dr Monk was a March of Dimes funded
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the IRDB, undertaking
research into the epigenetic regulation of placental imprinting
in the human, and the involvement of imprinted gene
expression in human fetal growth. During this time he was
awarded an EMBO short-term fellowship to spend time in
the laboratory of Dr Robert Feil in CNRS, Montpellier France.
In 2007, he was appointed as Lecturer in Molecular
Epigenetics and Paediatric Oncology at the Institute of Child
Health, University College London. Since the summer of
2008, Dr Monk is the Principal Investigator of the Genomic
Imprinting and Cancer group within the Cancer Epigenetics
and Biology Program of the Catalan Institute of Oncology
(ICO) in Barcelona. His current research interests include:
Aberrant epigenetic modifications and imprinting in MLL
translocation leukaemias; Altered DNA methylation and
imprinting profiles in cancers; and defining epigenetic signatures
for loss-of-imprinting that occur in cancer and imprinting
disorders.
PhD Students: Amy Guilaumet Adkins,
Alejandro Martin Trujillo
Visiting Student: Alberto Garcia Lopez
Epigenetics is the term used in biology to refer to chromatin
structure and DNA modifications that are stable over rounds
of cell division but do not involve changes in the DNA
sequence. Epigenetics play a pivotal role in cellular differentiation,
allowing cells to stably maintain different characteristics
despite containing the same genomic DNA. Epigenetic
processes are also involved in gene silencing, X chromosome
inactivation, reprogramming and are thought to be
one of the major limitations to cloning. One of the main
interests of this group is Genomic Imprinting. Imprinted
genes are expressed from only one parental allele, the other
is silenced by epigenetic modifications, classically involving
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