Group Members

Group Leader

Dr. Sudipto Das

Dr. Sudipto Das is a StAR research lecturer and principal investigator in the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He completed his undergraduate degree in India, followed by an M.Res at the University of Glasgow, and a PhD in Cancer Genetics at RCSI. He started his post-doctoral career in the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics laboratory (CBT), Conway Institue, University College Dublin (UCD). He has worked as a visiting lecturer at VIB, K.U., Leuven, AMC, Amsterdam, and Hoshi University, Japan.

His doctoral and post-doctoral work allowed him to develop a core expertise in epigenetics, focused on DNA methylation alterations and non-coding RNAs. This has allowed Dr. Das to obtain prestigious fellowships from organizations such as the Irish Cancer Society and several awards including the EACR Young Investigator award. He has cultivated various national and international collaborations and published highly cited peer-reviewed articles in high-impact scientific journals, such as Cancer Research, JCI, and Oncogene.

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Dr. Flavia Genua received her undergraduate degree in Biotechnology in 2015 and her MSc in Molecular Biotechnology in 2017 from the University of Pisa, Italy. She was then awarded an Erasmus fellowship to work at the University of Edinburgh for 7 months. In March 2023, she completed her PhD at UCD with the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Lab (CBT). Her project focused on investigating the correlation between colorectal cancer and microbiome status.

In the EpiGastro group, Dr. Genua’s primary project focuses on examining the diagnostic and functional role of a novel DNA methylation signature in predicting colorectal cancer metastasis. She is also involved in projects investigating DNA methylation signatures for personalized treatments in ulcerative colitis patients and is a co-supervisor for a project assessing the role of the microbiome in epigenetic changes associated with colorectal cancer.

Dr. Flavia Genua

Dr. Hannah Fitzgerald

Dr. Hannah Fitzgerald completed her B.A. (Mod) in Molecular Medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, in 2017. Following this, she began her PhD in the Molecular Immunology group in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College. Finishing in May 2022, her project focused on potential anti-inflammatory therapies derived from the parasite Trypanosoma brucei to treat inflammatory bowel disease. Hannah then worked as a post-doc in the same lab researching novel adjuvants for vaccines against cancer and other diseases.

Dr. Fitzgerald joined the EpiGastro group in October 2023 as an Enterprise Ireland-funded Post-Doctroal fellow. Her project involves developing a novel biomarker assay to predict progression in patients with ulcerative colitis.

Research Assistants

Gráinne completed her BSc in Genetics and Cell Biology in 2020 at Dublin City University. During this time, she carried out a 6-month internship in the Molecular Neuropathology laboratory at Beaumont Hospital where she worked as a medical laboratory aide, specialising in the molecular analysis of brain tumours. She completed her MSc in Molecular Medicine at Trinity College Dublin in 2022 and her thesis focused on the role of DNA repair genes in DNA double-stranded break repair in chemo-resistant non-small cell lung cancer.

Gráinne joined the lab in 2022 as a research assistant and is working on projects funded by HRB and Enterprise Ireland. Her work is focused on investigating the functional and diagnostic role of methylation-based signatures in metastatic colorectal cancer. She is also involved in the development of a gene expression-based diagnostic panel for ulcerative colitis.

Gráinne Kirwan

Graduate Students

Ololade Lawal

Ololade received her BSc in Pharmaceutical Science from the Technology University of the Shannon, Athlone Campus in 2016 and went to work as a diagnostic technologist at Abbott for a year. She left Abbott to pursue her education and obtained an MSc in Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics at Queen’s University Belfast. Her thesis focused on the molecular classification of triple-negative breast cancer.

Ololade joined the EpiGastro group in 2019 as a PhD student. Her project brings together a unique multi-disciplinary research team comprising academic, clinical, and industrial collaborators to identify DNA methylation signatures for personalizing treatment in patients with ulcerative colitis.

Alejandra is a Spanish Biologist who received her BS in Biology from the Universidad de Madrid in 2016. Upon graduation, she secured a scholarship from Santander UK where she obtained an MSc with Distinction in Drug Design and Biomedical Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University. Her dissertation on the metastatic pathway of Honokiol was also awarded the Class Medal. After her first MSc, she secured an internship as a Research Assistant at Medannex LTD, in Edinburgh. She furthered her education with a second MSc in Bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, graduating with Merit in 2020.

She joined the EpiGastro group in 2021 as an IRC Enterprise scholar and her PhD focuses on finding new biomarkers for gastrointestinal cancers, using machine learning methods.

Alejandra Rodríguez-Sosa

Asia Jordan

Asia received a 1st class honours degree in Cell & Molecular Biology (BSc) from University College Dublin in 2019. During her degree, she carried out various extra-curricular research projects investigating programmed cell death mechanisms in plants and methods to increase the yield of curcuminoid compounds in Curcuma sp. in Thailand. Her final year thesis project focused on focused on the generation of a cell-type specific CRISPR-Cas9 construct. Following her undergraduate degree, Asia worked as a research assistant (2019-2021), funded by Enterprise Ireland, focusing on the development and commercialization of epiCaPture, a urine test to detect aggressive prostate cancer in men.

In 2021 she started her PhD with the CBT lab at UCD, under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Antoinette Perry & Dr. Sudipto Das. Her project aims to improve the early detection of early-stage ovarian cancer using non-invasive epigenetic biomarkers.

Muhammad Ali graduated with a BSc and MSc in Biochemistry, specializing in structural bioinformatics, from Karachi University. He worked in synthetic biology and designed genetic circuits for a pollutant biosensor. Across the UK and the US, he has been awarded several fellowships to train in biosecurity and police as well as in tech commercialization and bioentreprenurship. He later delved into machine learning and completed AI in Genomics program at Concordia University. He has worked in metabolomics and mass spectrometry research before transitioning to Genomics Data Science as a Marie Curie fellow.

He joined the EpiGastro group in 2022 as a PhD student. His PhD project focuses on the multimodal fusion of omics and histopathological images using machine learning in inflammatory bowel disease.

Muhammad Ali

Dr. Xinxin Shao

Dr. Xinxin Shao completed her BSc in Clinical Medicine in 2019 at Nantong University, China. As a medical student, she was determined to become an excellent medical worker. So, she entered Soochow University, China to study for an MSc in Internal Medicine, which she finished in 2022. During her MSc, her project focused on the immunotherapy of gastrointestinal tumours.

Dr. Shao joined the EpiGastro lab in October 2022 as a PhD student. Her PhD project aims to identify the functional evolution of variable enhancer loci as a potential therapeutic option for metastatic colorectal cancer patients.

Dr. Ian Stephens is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, holding a BA in Genetics and an MB in Medicine. He is a General Surgery and Colorectal specialist registrar working with clinical interests in colorectal cancer, emergency general surgery, and abdominal wall reconstruction.

Dr. Stephens joined the EpiGastro group through the Strategic Academic Recruitment (StAR) MD programme at RCSI in 2023. His project focuses on investigating the role of the microbiome and alterations in gene regulation in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis and pouchitis.

Dr. Ian Stephens

Dr. Paul Nevins Selvadurai

Dr. Paul Nevins Selvadurai is a graduate of Saint Louis University and University College Dublin, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Biology and subsequently an honours degree in Medicine. His professional career has been dedicated to the field of Medical Oncology.

Currently, Dr. Nevins Selvadurai is engaged in the Strategic Academic Recruitment (StAR) MD Program at RCSI. His primary research focus lies in the epigenetics of colorectal cancer. He is exploring the diagnostic and functional role of a novel DNA methylation signature in predicting colorectal cancer metastasis. Employing ctDNA sequencing techniques, his research aims to validate a methylation signature, with the overarching goal of enhancing both the understanding and treatment of colorectal cancer.

Sudili graduated summa cum laude from Baylor University in 2023 with a BS in Biology, concentrating in Cell and Molecular Biology, along with a minor in Biochemistry. At Baylor, she worked in the Greathouse Lab which focuses on investigating the role of the gut microbiome and diet on the development of colorectal cancer. She successfully completed and defended an Honors thesis on the impact of vitamin D supplementation on indole-producing bacterial species abundance in the human gut microbiome.

Sudili joined the EpiGastro group in 2023 through the Fulbright/RCSI StAR PhD award. Her project focuses on assessing the role of the microbiome in epigenetic changes associated with colorectal cancer.