User:MatsonL1/sandbox

Title: Serena Nik-Zainal

Dr Serena Nik-Zainal is a Cancer Research UK advanced clinician scientist who studies the physiology of mutagenesis in the cancer genome. She is also an Honorary Consultant in Clinical Genetics.

Education:

Serena graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Cambridge in 2000, as part of a scholarship from Petronas, Malaysia.

After gaining her medical qualification, Serena trained as a physician and went on to specialise in Clinical Genetics. Serena went on to complete a PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (WSI) in 2009, exploring breast cancer using whole genome sequencing technology.

Research:

Whilst completing her PhD, Serena demonstrated how the downstream analyses of all mutations present in whole-genome sequenced breast cancers could expose mutation signatures, markers left by mutagenic processes or events that will have arisen throughout the cancers development. In particular, she identified a novel pattern of localised hypermutations coined as ‘kataegis’.

In 2013, Serena was awarded a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship. The following year  joined the Sanger Institute faculty team, where she continued to develop the particular analysis and interpretation of whole genome sequenced tumours. At the Wellcome Sanger Institute Serena led a clinical project that looked for patterns of mutations that arise cancer by studying large cancer datasets and utilising computational methods.

In 2017 Serena was awarded a CRUK Advanced Clinician Scientist Fellowship and moved to the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of Cambridge. Based at Addenbrooke’s Treatment Centre, Serena continues to explore mutagenesis in cancer, using experimental and computational methods.