Adrian Bracken
In 2021, Prof. Bracken was elected an EMBO Member for outstanding achievement in the life sciences. His lab has made multiple important contributions understanding of the molecular mechanisms of how Polycomb group proteins regulate cell-fate decisions in stem cells and cancer. They discovered a new family of vertebrate specific proteins that link nuclear receptor signalling and chromatin biology (Conway et al., Molecular Cell, 2018) and explored how different Polycomb Repressive complexes interplay to direct deposition of the H3K27me3 epigenetic modification (Healy et al., Molecular Cell, 2019). More recently, the lab discovered divergent molecular functions for different PRC2 subcomplexes, which goes a long way towards explaining why they have persisted throughout evolution (Glancy et al., Molecular Cell, 2023). In 2021, the lab studied an incurable childhood cancer called ‘H3-K27M-mutant diffuse midline glioma’ and proposed a treatment strategy based on understanding the consequences of the cancer causing gene (called H3-K27M) on the underlying biology (Brien et al., Nature Genetics, 2021). The lab is also focused on genetic predisposition to cancer and are using their expertise in chromatin biology to explore the contribution of the ‘non-coding genome’. Several exciting ongoing projects in the lab are studying the roles of chromatin regulators in developmental disorders and cancers.
Abstracts this author is presenting: