Dr Xin (Claire) Sun, Victoria Cancer Agency Early Career Research Fellowship (Biomedical), Bioinformatician

Dr Xin (Claire) Sun is a member of the Centre for Cancer Research.

Dr Xin (Claire) Sun

Biography

Dr Claire Sun is a Bioinformatician with the Next Generation Precision Medicine program.

Dr Sun is an early career researcher with a strong interest in applying bioinformatics tools to decode paediatric cancers. Dr Sun undertook her Masters at the University of Melbourne, with a research focus on non-coding RNA biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease, from which she gained experience in biomarker research using next generation sequencing.

During her PhD which she completed at at Monash University, she performed pioneering work in epigenetic regulation of mitochondrial DNA in tumorigenesis, which extended her skills in bioinformatics and eventually culminated in three major research papers. Global DNA methylation synergistically regulates the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes was published in Nucleic Acids ResearchModulation of mitochondrial DNA copy number in a model of glioblastoma induces changes to DNA methylation and gene expression of the nuclear genome in tumours was published in Epigenetics & Chromatin; and The degree of mitochondrial DNA methylation in tumor models of glioblastoma and osteosarcoma was published in Clinical Epigenetics.

Dr Sun’s previous research, which highlights the importance of bioinformatics in understanding tumorigenesis and aiding in the development of precision medicines, has redefined her new interest in translating basic research findings into clinical applications using the most cutting edge bioinformatics tools.  She will pursue this area of work in her role with the Next Generation Precision Medicine program.

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