Elizabeth Henderson

Research interests

I am a PhD student working under the supervision of Prof Panagis Filippakopoulos and Prof Colin Goding. My work is focussed on investigating the downstream effects of BET protein attenuation in melanoma. BET proteins are epigenetic readers; they bind to acetylated lysine residues on histone tails and recruit protein binding partners. Many of their binding partners are components of transcriptional machinery, therefore BET proteins and their attenuation can influence transcription. Influencing transcription by this means can be exploited therapeutically and BET inhibitors have entered clinical trials for a range of liquid and solid tumours. Members of the BET protein family have multiple functional domains which enable them to carry out their roles. Using melanoma as a model I am attempting to attenuate their function in a protein- and domain-specific manner, with a view to potentially developing an alternative therapeutic strategy.

Other roles

NDM Student Representative