Cancer Seminar Series

Seminar Title: 'Targeted epigenome engineering in breast cancer: from mechanism to therapies' 

Presented by Dr Pilar Blancafort, Cancer Epigenetics at The University of Western Australia in Crawley, Australia.

Her academic background involved undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2005, she established her own laboratory at the University of North Carolina, as Assistant Professor and later as tenured Associate Professor in 2011. In 2012, Professor Blancafort moved her laboratory at the University of Western Australia. Her laboratory focuses on the development of novel approaches to target cancers that are currently refractory to treatment and associated with poor outcomes, such as triple negative breast cancers. She joined the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in 2014. She hold’s a Cancer Council of Western Australia (CCWA) and Australian Research Council (ARC)  Future Fellowship. In this presentation Pilar will  discuss novel oncogenic drivers in breast cancer regulating the epigenetic state via MYC and ATF-4 binding occupancy in aggressive breast cancers; and innovative targeting epigenetic strategies to control DNA and histone methylation to revert phenotypes associated with epithelial to mesenchymal transition, drug resistance and immune control in metastatic breast cancer. Lastly, Pilar will discuss about targeted delivery systems for CRISPR/dCas9 systems in metastatic cancers.

For more information about Dr Blancafort, please see here