Adelaide Centre of Epigenetics

Professor Jose Polo has been appointed as the inaugural director of a new Adelaide Centre of Epigenetics within the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Adelaide and is also the first group leader appointed at SAiGENCI.

The relationship between epigenetics and cancer is well established and Professor Polo will be pivotal in establishing epigenetics capacity within SAiGENCI.

Professor’s Polo’s work in epigenetics spans several fields of research, such as pluripotency, nuclear reprogramming and cancer, where he has investigated the role of the epigenome in the development of lymphoma and the potential of developing an anti-lymphoma therapy and the mechanism by which these work, as well as bringing together reprogramming techniques to control cell identity into novel approaches to research into the treatment of prostate cancer. In the last 14 years there has been a revolution in this field, leading to an explosion in the use of reprogramming in potential cellular therapies. This process can inform and help in cancer biology research. Professor Polo’s work has been published in prestigious journals including Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, Cancer Cell, and Nature Neuroscience.