Biography
Dr Nisha Narayan is a Kay-Kendall Leukaemia Fund Fellow working with Prof Brian Huntly in the Department of Haematology. Her current research combines cell biology, CRISPR screening approaches, functional genomics and single cell transcriptomics to studying metabolic vulnerabilities in acute myeloid leukaemia. More specifically, her research aims to understand the role of dysregulated cellular metabolism in epigenetic and transcriptional regulation in the context of haematological malignancies.
She previously completed her PhD, was the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship, at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (Australia) studying the role of microRNAs in myeloid leukaemia.
Publications
1. Lara-Astiaso D.*, Goñi-Salaverri A.*, Mendieta-Esteban J.*, Narayan N, Del Valle C, Gross T, Giotopoulos G, Bienortas T, Navarro-Alonso M, Aguado-Alvaro L.P., Zazpe J, Marchese F, Torrea N, Calvo I.A, Lopez C.K, Alignani D, Lopez A, Saez B, Taylor-King J. P, Prosper F, Fortelny N#, Huntly B. J. P# “In vivo screening characterizes chromatin-factor functions during normal and malignant hematopoiesis” Nature Genetics. 2023 (*equal contribution # equal contribution)
2. Yun H., N. Narayan, S. Vohra, G. Giotopoulos, A. Mupo, P. Madrigal, D. Sasca, D. Lara-Astiaso, S.J. Horton, S. Agrawal-Singh, E. Meduri, F. Basheer, L. Marando, M. Gozdecka, O.M. Dovey, A. Castillo-Venzor, X. Wang, P. Gallipoli, C. Müller-Tidow, C.S. Osborne, G.S. Vassiliou, B.J.P Huntly. “Mutational synergy coordinately remodels chromatin accessibility, enhancer landscape and 3-Dimensional DNA topology to alter gene expression during leukemia induction" Nature Genetics. 2021;53(10):1443-1455.
3. Narayan N, Morenos L, Phipson B, et al. “Functionally distinct roles for different miR-155 expression levels through contrasting effects on gene expression, in acute myeloid leukemia”. Leukemia. 2017;31(4):808–820.
4. Salmanidis M*, Brumatti G*, Narayan N, et al. Hoxb8 regulates expression of microRNAs to control cell death and differentiation. Cell Death Differ. 2013;20(10):1370-1380.
5. Narayan N and B. J. P. Huntly (2022). "Targeting AML at the intersection of epigenetics and signaling." Sci Signal 15(730): eabo0059.
6. Narayan N, Bracken CP, Ekert PG. “MicroRNA-155 expression and function in AML: An evolving paradigm”. Exp Hematol. 2018; 62:1-6.
7. Gangoda L, Doerflinger M, Srivastava R, Narayan N, et al. “Loss of Prkar1a leads to Bcl-2 family protein induction and cachexia in mice”. Cell Death Differ. 2014;21(11):1815-1824.
8. Perini G, Milazzo G, Narayan N, Ekert PG. “Letting the breaks off MYCN”. Cell Death Differ. 2016;23(12):1904-1905.
9. Ku M., MacKinnon R.N., Wall M., Narayan N, et al. “ Hemopoietic Cell Kinase amplification with Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase Receptor T depletion leads to polycythemia, aberrant marrow erythroid maturation, and splenomegaly”. Scientific Reports. 2019; 9, 7050.
10. Garcia-Gimenez, A., Ditcham, J.E., Azazi, D.M.A., Meduri, E., Asby, R., Sakakini, N., Lopez, C.K., Narayan, N., Beinortas, T., Bagri, J., Agrawal-Singh, S., Giotopoulos, G., Murphy, M., Horton, S.J., Huntly, B.J.P.,* and Richardson, S.E.* (2023). Genetic or pharmacological inactivation of CREBBP sensitizes B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia to Ferroptotic Cell Death upon BCL2 Inhibition. bioRxiv, 2023.2010.2002.556536. (*equal contribution)
Published conference abstracts (in chronological order)
1. Ku M, Narayan N, Wall M, MacKinnon RN, Campbell LJ, Nandurkar H. Identification and Analysis of Oncogenic Pathways in Deletion 20q Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. Blood. 2012;120(21):1324.
2. Ku M, Narayan N, MacKinnon RN, et al. Identification and Analysis of Oncogenic Pathways in Deletion 20q Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. Blood. 2014;124(21):5195.
3. Narayan N, Morenos L, Phipson B, et al. The Dose-Dependent Effects of Microrna-155 in Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Blood. 2016;128(22):2841. [*Editor’s choice]
4. Narayan N, Morenos L, Yuen HLA, et al. Microrna-211 - a Novel Oncogene in Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Blood. 2017;2017(130):2507.