Epigenetics & Disease Prevention
MISSION
This Board of Regents’ designated center seeks to identify protective agents from natural sources, immunoprevention, and drug repurposing, acting via epigenetic mechanisms to inhibit disease development, including patients.
Roderick H. Dashwood, PhD, FRSB
University Distinguished Professor
Director, Center for Epigenetics and Disease Prevention (CEDP)
John S. Dunn Chair in Disease Prevention
Center for Epigenetics and Disease Prevention
2121 W. Holcombe Blvd.
Houston, TX 77030
Houston, TX 77030
Sherisse Joseph, BS, MPA
Administrative Coordinator I
Assistant to Roderick H. Dashwood, PhD, FRSB, Director
Center for Epigenetics & Disease Prevention
713.677.7524
Mission
This Board of Regents’ designated center seeks to identify protective agents from natural sources, immunoprevention, and drug repurposing, acting via epigenetic mechanisms to inhibit disease development, including patients.
Research
- Epigenetics has been described as “the software that runs the human genome”, and is viewed traditionally as involving heritable changes in gene expression not tied to DNA sequence alterations.
- Unlike the genome, the epigenome is quite “plastic” and can be (re)programmed by environmental, dietary, and other exogenous factors to influence human health and disease progression.
- Scientists in the CEDP apply bioinformatics, biostatistics, in silico, biochemical, molecular, preclinical, and human translational approaches to examine the continuum from early life stages through normal development, and into various pathologies (e.g., cancer, pediatric disorders, COPD, and cardiovascular diseases).
- Due to its proximity to the Texas Medical Center in Houston, the CEDP serves as a conduit for advancing cutting-edge research in the clinic, focused on DNA methylation and demethylation, histone modifications, chromatin remodeling, and noncoding RNAs.
CORES
- Under the leadership of Dr. Praveen Rajendran, the Antibody & Biopharmaceutics Core can generate customized polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies tailored to meet the specific needs of individual research programs.
- Under the leadership of Dr. Kurt Zhang, the Rigor & Reproducibility Core assists investigators with incorporating Rigor and Reproducibility into their research by performing rigorous statistical and bioinformatics analysis.
- A Next Generation Sequencing Core has been established under the leadership of Dr. Yun (Nancy) Huang, using state-of-the-art high-throughput sequencing coupled with in-house bioinformatics expertise under the auspices of Dr. Jia Li.
For additional resources and for shared use regarding our CORES, please contact Wan-Mohaiza Dashwood.
Representative Publications
| Year | Publication | Journal | JIF | PMID |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | HDAC8 and STAT3 repress BMF gene activity in colon cancer cells | Cell Death & Disease | 12.2 | 25321483 |
| 2016 | Reciprocal regulation of BMF and BIRC5 (Survivin) linked to Eomes overexpression in colorectal cancer | Cancer Letters | 10.8 | 27539959 |
| 2017 | A miRNA signature for an environmental heterocyclic amine defined by a multi-organ carcinogenicity bioassay in the rat | Archives of Toxicology | 10.9 | 28289824 |
| 2019 | Acetylation of CCAR2 Establishes a BET/BRD9 Acetyl Switch in Response to Combined Deacetylase and Bromodomain Inhibition | Cancer Research | 22.6 | 30643017 |
| 2019 | Antibiotic treatment ameliorates Ten-eleven translocation 2 (TET2) loss-of-function associated hematological malignancies | Cancer Letters | 10.8 | 31563562 |
| 2020 | A combination strategy targeting enhancer plasticity exerts synergistic lethality against BETi-resistant leukemia cells | Nature Communications | 18.1 | 32029739 |
| 2020 | Emerging crosstalk between long non-coding RNAs and Nrf2 signaling | Cancer Letters | 10.8 | 32717274 |
| 2020 | Reliable tumor detection by whole-genome methylation sequencing of cell-free DNA in cerebrospinal fluid of pediatric medulloblastoma | Science Advances | 12.5 | 33067228 |
| 2021 | Engineering of a bona fide light-operated calcium channel | Nature Communications | 18.1 | 33431868 |
| 2021 | Preferential CEBP binding to T mismatches and increased C-to-T human somatic mutations | Nucleic Acids Research | 13.1 | 33877329 |
| 2021 | Dietary spinach reshapes the gut microbiome in an Apc-mutant genetic background: mechanistic insights from integrated multi-omics | Gut Microbes | 11.0 | 34494932 |
| 2021 | Optogenetic Control of Non-Apoptotic Cell Death | Advanced Science | 14.1 | 34540558 |
| 2021 | Expression of chimeric antigen receptor therapy targets detected by single-cell sequencing of normal cells may contribute to off-tumor toxicity | Cancer Cell | 56.1 | 34678153 |
| 2021 | Altered Chromatin States Drive Cryptic Transcription in Aging Mammalian Stem Cells | Nature Aging | 19.5 | 34746802 |
| 2022 | Harnessing big data to characterize immune-related adverse events | Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology | 94.6 | 35039679 |
| 2022 | Genetic, Pharmacogenomic, and Immune Landscapes of Enhancer RNAs Across Human Cancers | Cancer Research | 22.6 | 35022213 |
| 2022 | GPEdit: the genetic and pharmacogenomic landscape of A-to-I RNA editing in cancers | Nucleic Acids Research | 13.1 | 34534336 |
| 2022 | Identification of a STIM1 Splicing Variant that Promotes Glioblastoma Growth | Advanced Science | 14.1 | 35076181 |
| 2022 | RNA Helicase DHX37 Facilitates Liver Cancer Progression by Cooperating with PLRG1 to Drive Superenhancer-Mediated Transcription of Cyclin D1 | Cancer Research | 22.6 | 35290436 |
| 2022 | Race is a key determinant of the human intratumor microbiome | Cancer Cell | 56.1 | 36099885 |
| 2022 | Targeting epigenetic regulatory machinery to overcome cancer therapy resistance | Seminars in Cancer Biology | 20.3 | 33421619 |
| 2022 | Multi-omics characterization of autophagy-related molecular features for therapeutic targeting of autophagy | Nature Communications | 18.1 | 36289218 |
| 2023 | Autophagy induction sensitizes cancer cells to anti-cancer drugs | Autophagy | 18.6 | 36576206 |
| 2023 | Distinct T cell sub-clusters may serve as biomarkers for immune related adverse events | Cell Reports Medicine | ≥10 | 36652911 |
| 2023 | Dynamic immune signatures as biomarkers for irAEs | Trends in Cancer | 17.5 | 36941187 |
| 2023 | Spatial landscape of the tumor immune microenvironment | Trends in Cancer | 17.5 | 36967255 |
| 2023 | Multi-omic genetic scores advance disease research | Trends in Genetics | 12.9 | 37295977 |
| 2023 | The Genetic, Pharmacogenomic, and Immune Landscapes Associated with Protein Expression across Human Cancers | Cancer Research | 22.6 | 37548539 |
| 2024 | Alternative splicing of BAZ1A in colorectal cancer disrupts the DNA damage response and increases chemosensitization | Cell Death & Disease | 12.2 | 39112459 |
| 2025 | Comprehensive characterization of the transcriptional landscape in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains | Science Advances | 12.5 | 39752483 |
| 2025 | Optogenetic engineering for precision cancer immunotherapy | Trends in Pharmacological Sciences | 24.0 | 40500674 |
| 2025 | Engineering of photo-inducible binary interaction tools for biomedical applications | Nature Communications | 18.1 | 40721575 |
| 2026 | Functional, Pharmacogenomic, and Immune Landscapes of Long Non-Coding RNAs in Cancer | Advanced Science | 14.1 | 41270088 |
| 2026 | Engineering of genetically encoded programmable calcium channel inhibitory binders | Nature Communications | 18.1 | 41974720 |