Dr. Hamza Celik has joined the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology in July, 2018.
Dr. Celik completed his BS (Honors) in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Westminster (London, UK) and his MS in Functional Genomics at the University of York (York, UK). He received his PhD from the French Center for Scientific Research (C.N.R.S) under the supervision of Dr. Pascale de Philip, prior to joining Dr. Grant Challen’s Lab as a post-doctoral research fellow in December of 2013.
His research focus is to understand the fundamental biology behind hematological malignancies and developing therapeutics for treatments. This partnership between basic science and its clinical application is central to his career ambitions. His current research focus includes functional characterization of tumor suppressors (exp. DNMT3A, JARID2) in leukemic transformation of chronic myeloid malignancies using novel mouse models that have many features of human blood diseases.
Hamza’s research interests also include developing strategies to alter the epigenomic landscape at particular disease-promoting loci while leaving the rest of the normal marks intact in the cell. Such tools will allow researchers to map the cause-and-effect relationship of abnormal epigenetic modifications (esp. DNA methylation or histone modifications) and to validate their direct biological significance in disease. CRISPRs can be used as finely-honed molecular scalpels to edit the epigenome without off-target effects. The technology could be easily adaptable for any disease with a characterized epigenomic defect and can provide powerful tools for the study of epigenetics.