Alina Nicheperovich

Research interests

My research lies in the intersection between Cancer Genomics and Women's Health - as part of Schuster-Boeckler Group, I investigate genomic and epigenomic changes underpinning the development of gestational trophoblastic disease. This condition describes a group of rare pre-malignant and cancerous lesions that arise from the trophoblast cells of the placenta. Unlike other types of cancer, gestational tumours have been reported to have a low mutational load, but, interestingly, a strikingly different methylome when compared to healthy placenta. For this reason, it's hypothesised that these tumours are driven by epigenetic changes. The aim of my research is to identify such methylation markers for gestational trophoblastic disease, which could then be used for diagnostic purposes using cell-free DNA testing.

Background

I completed my BSc in Biochemistry at UCL in 2022. I then joined the University of Oxford to undertake an MSc in Genomic Medicine at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics. During my MSc project supervised by Prof Schuster-Boeckler, I used a computational approach to study the microenvironment of gestational tumours through deconcolution of bulk RNA-seq data from tumours using single cell RNA-seq data from healthy placenta as a reference.