Sean Burnard

Dr Sean Burnard is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Newcastle's School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, based at the Hunter Medical Research Institute. He holds dual appointments in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy and the School of Medicine and Public Health. His research focuses on leveraging bioinformatics and multi-omic data to study epigenetic changes in cancer and immune-related diseases, particularly exploring transposable elements' roles in treatment resistance. He completed his PhD in Medical Genetics at the University of Newcastle (2021), analyzing NK cell genetics in Multiple Sclerosis using machine learning.

Education:

• BSc in Biochemistry, Cardiff University, UK
• PhD in Medical Genetics, University of Newcastle, Australia (2021)

Research Interests: Single-cell epigenomics, cancer treatment resistance, transposable elements in disease, bioinformatics pipelines for multi-omic data, and MS immunogenetics. His work emphasizes translating epigenetic insights into therapeutic strategies.

Grants:

• $6,500 Mike and Karin Calford Travel Fellowship (2023)

Advising: Co-supervising 2 current students: a Master's candidate studying DNA methylation in AML and a PhD candidate on epigenetic heterogeneity in AML. No completed students listed.

Labs/Teams: Cancer Epigenetics group led by Dr Heather Lee, collaborating nationally on hypomethylating agent therapies and transposable element analysis.