Dr Gabriella Ficz
Group Leader
Reader in Molecular Biology and Epigenetics
Overview
Our lab investigates epigenetic mechanisms operating at the boundary between normality and cancer, with the aim to discover preventive interventions before cancer takes hold. We use in vivo mouse models and ex vivo cellular systems and focus on physiological outputs of disease promoting epigenetic changes.
Research
With over 20 years of experience in experimental epigenetics, Dr Gabriella Ficz has made seminal contributions to the field. Her work has been cited more than 8,600 times, and she has an h-index of 24 (as of 2026).
Her groundbreaking research on DNA demethylation and the role of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) in development helped establish the foundations for understanding epigenetic regulation in embryonic stem cells and the DNA demethylation cycle (Ficz et al., Nature, 2011. PMID: 21460836).
She and her colleagues discovered that epigenetic reprogramming in embryonic stem cells is regulated by signalling networks (Ficz et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2013. PMID: 23850245), identified parallels between the epigenetic changes seen during early development and in cancer (Patani et al., Nature Communications, 2020. PMID: 32699299), and pioneered CRISPR-based epigenetic editing in primary human cells, demonstrating its impact on cancer-associated DNA methylation patterns (Saunderson et al., Nature Communications, 2017. PMID: 29133799).
In collaboration with the Bonnet lab at the Francis Crick Institute, she revealed how aberrant DNA methylation in haematopoietic stem cells propagates into immune dysfunction, demonstrating that epigenetic editing can create durable molecular memories in human cells and reshape immune cell function (Saunderson et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023. PMID: 37579157).
Current projects
Why Blood Stem Cells Lose Resilience With Age
We investigate why blood stem cells lose resilience with age and how this may increase the risk of blood cancer and inflammatory disease. In collaboration with the Bonnet lab, we study whether age-related epigenetic changes — molecular alterations that affect gene activity without changing the DNA sequence — actively weaken healthy blood stem cells and favour the expansion of mutation-bearing clones.
Using targeted epigenetic editing and human stem-cell models, we will test how genetic, epigenetic and inflammatory factors interact during ageing. The long-term goal is to identify reversible mechanisms that preserve healthy blood production and reduce disease risk in later life.
How Inflammation Can Leave a Lasting Mark on the Colon and Raise Cancer Risk
This project investigates how inflammation leaves lasting epigenetic memories that prime normal colon cells for cancer initiation. Using a model of colitis-associated colorectal cancer, we study how changes in DNA methylation and demethylation persist after episodes of inflammation and shape the transition from tissue repair to precancerous states.
By combining single-cell transcriptomic and methylomic approaches, the project aims to understand how stable epigenetic alterations influence cell identity, plasticity and tumour-forming potential. This work will reveal how chronic inflammation may reprogramme the colon epigenome to create permissive conditions for colorectal cancer development.
Reprogramming Immune Memory to Protect Against Future Viruses
In a collaborative programme funded by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), we are exploring whether the immune system can be precisely reprogrammed to provide broad and long-lasting protection against respiratory viruses. Rather than targeting one virus at a time, the epiPRIME team aims to harness epigenetics to strengthen innate immune memory, the body’s rapid first line of defence.
Using CRISPR-based epigenetic editing, the project will investigate whether protective antiviral states can be installed in immune cells while avoiding excessive inflammation. The long-term goal is to develop a new class of preventative therapies for emerging and rapidly evolving viral threats.
Key Publications
Major Funding
- 2024-2029 – Targeted Transformational Funding from Barts Charity “Cell-Free Epigenomics for Disease Biomarker Discovery” co-PI with Dr Branco/Dr Bell (£3,000,000)
- 2024-2028 – CRUK CoL PhD studentship “Epigenetic regulation of the immune cells, clonal hematopoiesis and cancer initiation” (£92,000)
- 2024-2025 – CRUK CoL Development Grant: “Understanding how the epigenome in blood stem cells induces an inflammatory environment” (£25,000)
- 2023-2026 – Barts Charity Large Project Grant “The tumour suppressive nature of the chromatin landscape during tissue regeneration” (£328,000)
- 2021-2024 – Barry Reed Cancer Fund PhD studentship “Why do healthy cells become cancerous? Elucidating the origin of pre-cancerous cells” (£78,000)
Other Activities
- QMUL Centre for Epigenetics Co-lead
- Associate editor NAR Cancer
- Mentoring young researchers to excellence
Invited to speak at the ICR/Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute “Pathway to Independence; Developing future scientific leaders” programme (March 1st 2016, The Royal Institution of Great Britain) - Contribute regularly to the Max Planck Institute/Göttingen University MSc/PhD Programme Alumni magazine, the latest article detailing personal experiences in my transition to academic independence, Title: “Living the dream I never dared to have” (Page 18)
- Public engagement
Presentation at the Pint of Science Festival, London 2014 “Will a bad memory kill you: Epigenetics at a glance”, and “Genetic Puppetry” in 2016 - Invited speaker at TEDx Bucharest on “Epigenetics and Stem cells”, 16th October 2009
Biography
I started my research career at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany as a masters student at the first International MSc/PhD Research School in Molecular Biology. Here I had the opportunity to work with exceptional people in various research areas and this inspired me in my work for the years to come.
I came across Epigeneticsearly on and was fascinated by the paradigms and the questions at that time, so in 2002 I decided to do my PhD with Donna Arndt-Jovin working on the Polycomb-group of genes (PcG), which control body patterning in the fruit fly model system. I found that the PcG proteins are extremely dynamic on the genes they control, presumably having the ability to quickly respond to environmental signals in development.
Later on, for my postdoctoral research, I joined the group of Prof. Wolf Reik at the Babraham Institute, University of Cambridge, in 2005 where I worked on Epigenetic reprogramming in the mammalian system. We were seeking to find the elusive mechanism capable of erasing the epigenetic memory in cells. This memory, in the form of a chemical methyl group on the 5’ position of cytosines in the DNA, is essential for normal mammalian development and for maintaining identity of adult cells. Such reprogramming happens at fertilization and in germ cells in order to re-establish totipotency in early embryogenesis. After the discovery of the TET (ten-eleven translocation) protein activity, which oxidises 5-methylcytosine (5mC) to generate 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), we mapped for the first time the genomic positions where 5hmC is generated in mouse embryonic stem cells and found that indeed this mechanism is in part responsible for removing the repressive 5mC signal in DNA.
In 2013 my research indicated that epigenetic reprogramming is mediated as well by signalling networks, which control the genes involved in maintaining the methylation patterns in cells. This made me understand the relevance of such mechanisms in health and disease therefore I decided to investigate them in adult stem cells which regenerate our body and have direct impact on ageing and cancer. I was appointed Lecturer and Early Career Researcher in September 2013.
Related News
Scientists awarded £5.7m to harness epigenetics in next-generation anti-viral therapies
BCI researcher Dr Gabriella Ficz and team have been awarded funding as part of a £5.7m national collaborative initiative exploring how epigenetics can be harnessed to strengthen our immune system’s ability to fight viruses. Dr Ficz will receive £880,000 to support her team’s contribution to the epiPRIME project, awarded by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA).
Grants & Awards 25 June 2026
New Epigenetics Hub set to advance early disease detection
A £3m collaboration will investigate how marks on DNA in blood enable early disease detection
General News 29 January 2024
Research explainer with Dr Gabriella Ficz
We spoke with Dr Gabriela Ficz to find out about her recent publication in Nature Communications. The study set out to determine how embryonic stem cells can acquire features that are found in cancer cells.
Interviews 28 September 2020