معرفی
Professor Adele Murrell is a Professor of Epigenetics in the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Bath's Faculty of Science. She serves as Co-Director of the Centre for Therapeutic Innovation and is affiliated with both the Centre for Mathematical Biology and the Centre for Bioengineering & Biomedical Technologies (CBio). She is currently accepting doctoral students and maintains an active research program with multiple ongoing projects.
Her research focuses on understanding how cells establish and maintain their specific identities through epigenetic mechanisms. Her work centers on epigenetic barriers and cell identity, genomic imprinting as a model epigenetic system, long-range epigenetic silencing in cancer, and epigenetic reprogramming during metastasis. She investigates how higher-order chromatin structure and epigenetic modifications shape the genome within the nucleus to constitute cell identity and provide memory of developmental origins. Her current work examines colon cancer and liver metastasis, focusing on changes in DNA methylation and its demethylation intermediates such as 5-hydroxymethylcytosine.
Analysis of Professor Murrell's recent publications reveals a strong focus on DNA hydroxymethylation patterns in cancer progression, particularly in colorectal cancer metastasis. Her work bridges molecular epigenetics with clinical applications, exploring how epigenetic changes during metastasis could be targeted to prevent cancer spread. She has developed novel techniques for detecting epigenetic modifications and has made significant contributions to understanding allele-specific chromatin domains and genomic imprinting mechanisms.
Professor Murrell leads multiple research projects including 'Two stages of genome wide 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) reprogramming during colorectal carcinogenesis and liver metastasis' funded by the MRC until February 2024, and 'Modelling the fits and starts of how genes burst into expression' funded by The Leverhulme Trust until June 2024. She was also a Co-Investigator on the 'Multi User High-Content Confocal Microscope' project funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Her laboratory work connects with UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to health and well-being. Her fingerprint analysis shows strong activity in Epigenetics (100%), DNA Methylation (94%), Allele research (73%), Methylation studies (69%), Genomic Imprinting (60%), CTCF research (56%), Promoter Region analysis (44%), and Differentially Methylated Regions (34%).
