About

I am a PhD student in Systems Biology Ireland as part of the Centre for Research Training (CRT) Genomics Data Science programme, co-funded by the European Commission’s Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) COFUND programme. My work involves finding molecular vulnerabilities in high-risk pediatric leukemia through biological network analysis. I am interested in exploiting omics data to better understand childhood leukemia to aid in the development of better treatments. I am currently part of the Bond and Ryan groups in SBI, UCD.

 

Interests

Cancer biology Childhood leukaemia Epigenomics Data viz NGS
Data science Bioinformatics Chromatin architecture

 

Background

SBI

CRT
 PhD student, Systems Biology Ireland, UCD
2020 - present
Identifying molecular vulenarabilities in childhood leukaemia through biological network analysis.
UoN
 MSci Hons Genetics
2016 - 2020
Awarded a first class MSci Hons degree in Genetics.

 

Projects

SBI

CRT
 PhD
2020 - 2024
Supervisors: Prof Jonathan Bond and Prof Colm Ryan
Currently working on using biological networks to uncover
vulnerabilities in childhood leukaemia. I am using large
datasets from patients and cell-line models such as WGS,
RNA-Seq, proteomics, CRISPR screens to compare leukaemia subtypes.
UoN
 Masters project
Sep 2019 - May 2020
Supervisor: Prof John Armour
Studied copy-number variations in the human genome
using Nanopore reads.
Developed a pipeline that can identify copy-number variants
and separate the two haplotypes based on read
depth and read length.
UoN
 Summer internship
Jun 2019 - Aug 2019
Supervisor: Dr Martin Gering
Worked on zebrafish mutant embryos to investigate how
the expression of macrophage marker genes changes over
different time-points post fertilisation.
Learnt about developmental biology and gene regulation.
Methods used: embryo handling, RNA in-situ hybridization,
PCR and light microscopy.

 

Publications

 

PhD thesis

Defining molecular vulnerabilities in childhood leukaemia through biological network analysis

 

Presentations

  • October 2024 - UCD Conway Festival gold medal competition - Dublin, Ireland
    Talk: Gene essentiality in cancer is better predicted by mRNA abundance than by gene regulatory network-inferred activity

  • June 2024 - European Hematology Association Congress - Madrid, Spain
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation and 3D chromatin architecture in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • May 2024 - EMBO Intercepting Childhood Blood Cancer: From Single Cells To Malignant Clones - Düsseldorf, Germany
    Flash Talk: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation and 3D chromatin architecture in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • April 2024 - EACR Cancer Genomics, Multiomics and Computational Biology - Bergamo, Italy
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation and 3D chromatin architecture in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • February 2024 - EACR-AACR-IACR 2024 - Dublin, Ireland
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation and 3D chromatin architecture in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • December 2023 - Irish Computational Biology and Genomics Symposium - University of Galway, Ireland
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation and 3D chromatin architecture in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • October 2023 - IUBMB Focused Meeting on Integrative Omics of Nuclear Functions - Avra Imperial Hotel, Kolymvari, Greece
    Talk: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation and 3D chromatin architecture in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • September 2023 - 20th Anniversary of Childhood Leukaemia Research UK - University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
    Talk: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation and 3D chromatin architecture in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • September 2023 - BCNI Blood Cancer Symposium - Hilton Kilmainham, Dublin, Ireland
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • July 2023 - All-Ireland Haematology Forum - Queen’s University Belfast, UK
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • May 2023 - All-Ireland Chromatin Consortium - University College Dublin, Ireland
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • May 2023 - VIBE Conference - Queen’s University Belfast, UK
    Poster: The role of PRC2 in gene regulation in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • December 2022 - Irish Computational Biology and Genomics Symposium - University of Galway, Ireland
    Talk: The dual role of PRC2 in gene regulation in acute myeloid leukaemia

  • September 2022 - CRISPR and Beyond: Perturbations at Scale to Understand Genomes - Wellcome Genome Campus, UK
    Talk: Sensitivity to gene inhibition in cancer cells is better predicted by mRNA abundance than by gene regulatory network-inferred activity

  • June 2022 - VIBE Conference - Limerick, Ireland
    Talk: Sensitivity to gene inhibition in cancer cells is better predicted by mRNA abundance than by gene regulatory network-inferred activity

  • February 2022 - Systems Genomics Summit - Virtual
    Poster: Gene regulatory network-inferred driver activity as a predictor of cancer cells sensitivity to gene inhibition

  • October 2021 - Conway Festival - Virtual
    Poster: Gene regulatory network-inferred driver activity as a predictor of cancer cells sensitivity to gene inhibition