Ron Firestein Lab

Therapeutic Targeting of the Colon Cancer Epigenome

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common malignancy in Australia with over 17,000 cases diagnosed a year. Recent analyses have uncovered epigenetic alterations as major drivers of tumourigenesis in CRC. With the emergence of epigenetic targeted therapeutics, it is now clear that DNA methylation and histone modification are reversible processes that can be targeted for intervention using small molecule inhibitors of epigenetic writers (methyltransferases, acetyltransferases, kinases), readers (bromodomain- or chromodomain-containing genes) and erasers (demethylases, deacetylases, phosphatases). This project uses  genome editing technology to target nearly ~1000 epigenetic regulators and dissect their involvement in regulating key oncogenic signalling pathways such as Wnt/b-catenin and expression of critical oncogenes such as c-MYC.