Home| Senior Lecturer in Epigenetics |
Contact details:
| Tel: | +44 20 7882 8140 |
| Fax: | +44 20 7882 2186 |
| Email: | v.rakyan@qmul.ac.uk |
| Address: | Centre for Diabetes, |
Biography
For my PhD (1999-2002), I investigated epigenetic inheritance under the supervision of Prof. Emma Whitelaw, University of Sydney, Australia. From 2003-2007, I was a CJ Martin Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK where, under the guidance of Dr Stephan Beck, I developed functional genomics tools for genome-wide DNA methylation analyses.
Research Interests
The overall goals of my lab are to understand ‘epialleles' – loci at which the epigenetic state varies as a result of stochastic, genetic and/or environmental influences. We are pursuing several complementary lines of investigation that integrate molecular genomics, bioinformatics, model organisms, and human cohorts to understand the role of epialleles in complex phenotypes and diseases, transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, and environmental epigenomics.
Lab Members
Lisa Nanty (PhD student)
Dr. Sarah Finer (Clinical Research Fellow/PhD student, jointly supervised with Prof. Graham Hitman, QMUL)
Dr Michelle Holland (RCUK-funded Postdoctoral Research Associate)
Dr Guillermo Carbajosa (BBSRC-funded Postdoctoral Research Associate)
Dr Carolina Gemma (BBSRC-funded Postdoctoral Research Associate)
Funding
BBSRC (New Investigator and Project grant), Barts and The London Charity, RCUK.
Key Publications
• Rakyan VK*, Down TA* (*equal first authors), Maslau S, Andrew T, Yang TP, Beyan H, Whittaker P, McCann OT, Finer S, Valdes AM, Leslie RD, Deloukas P, Spector TD. (2010) Human aging-associated DNA hypermethylation occurs preferentially at bivalent chromatin domains. Genome Res. 20: 434. [Joint corresponding author - VK Rakyan]
• Down TA*, Rakyan VK* (*equal first authors), Turner DJ, Flicek P, Li H, Kulesha E, Gräf S, Johnson N, Herrero J, Tomazou EM, Thorne NP, Bäckdahl L, Herberth M, Howe KL, Jackson DK, Miretti MM, Marioni JC, Birney E, Hubbard TJ, Durbin R, Tavaré S, Beck S. (2008) A Bayesian deconvolution strategy for immunoprecipitation-based DNA methylome analysis. Nat Biotechnol. 26: 779. [Joint corresponding author - VK Rakyan]
• Rakyan VK*, Down TA*, Thorne NP*, Flicek P*, (*equal first authors), Kulesha E, Gräf S, Tomazou EM, Bäckdahl L, Johnson N, Herberth M, Howe KL, Jackson DK, Miretti MM, Fiegler H, Marioni JC, Birney E, Hubbard TJ, Carter NP, Tavaré S, Beck S. (2008) An integrated resource for genome-wide identification and analysis of human tissue-specific differentially methylated regions (tDMRs ). Genome Res. 18: 1518. [Joint corresponding author - VK Rakyan]
• Eckhardt F, Lewin J, Cortese R, Rakyan VK, Attwood J, Burger M, Burton J, Cox TV, Davies R, Down TA, Haefliger C, Horton R, Howe K, Jackson DK, Kunde J, Koenig C, Liddle J, Niblett D, Otto T, Pettett R, Seemann S, Thompson C, West T, Rogers J, Olek A, Berlin K, Beck S. (2006) DNA methylation profiling of human chromosomes 6, 20 and 22. Nat Genet. 38: 1378.
• Rakyan VK, Hildmann T, Novik KL, Lewin J, Tost J, Cox AV, Andrews TD, Howe KL, Otto T, Olek A, Fischer J, Gut IG, Berlin K, Beck S. (2004) DNA methylation profiling of the human major histocompatibility complex: a pilot study for the human epigenome project. PLoS Biol. 2: e405.
• Rakyan VK, Chong S, Champ ME, Cuthbert PC, Morgan HD, Luu KV, Whitelaw E. (2003) Transgenerational inheritance of epigenetic states at the murine AxinFu allele occurs after maternal and paternal transmission. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 100: 2538-43.
