Anna dyas

PhD Student. 

Anna studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, carrying out her undergraduate thesis in the laboratory of Paul T Conduit, studying γ-TuRC Heterogeneity in D. melanogaster. During this time, she additionally carried out a Wellcome Trust Vacation Scholarship-funded research project in the Dickson Laboratory at Royal Holloway, where she studied muscular fibrosis associated with muscular dystrophies using the dCas9-VPR system.

After completing her undergraduate degree, Anna was then awarded a stipend by the International Max Planck Research School to carry out a Master’s in Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. As part of this course, she carried out three rotational research projects. In the Schuh Laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, she applied super-resolution expansion microscopy to improving the spatial and temporal resolution of mouse oocyte studies. In the Wimmer Laboratory at The Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, she gained experience in a range of techniques including germline transformation of D. melanogaster, reporter assays and in situ hybridization. Anna’s third rotation and subsequent master’s thesis were carried out in the group of Steven Johnsen. Here, Anna applied CRISPR technology and functional in vitro assays combined with high-throughput genomics to investigate oncogenic pathways in mammary carcinomas.

PhD under the supervision of Sakari Vanharanta, where her research focuses on understanding how tissue-specific oncogenic programmes drive and maintain cancer progression, by combining acute protein degradation techniques, state-of-the-art functional genomics and bioinformatics to clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Anna has since joined the group of Daniel Muñoz-Espín, in the Department of Oncology. Beyond her PhD, Anna enjoys painting, salsa dancing and rowing, as well as getting out in nature to go climbing, bikepacking and hiking.

​

Selected publications

​

• Werner, Marcel; Dyas, Anna,  et al.

"ROBO3s: a novel ROBO3 short isoform promoting breast cancer aggressiveness."​

Cell Death & Disease 13.9 (2022): 762

​

• Prokakis, Evangelos, et al.

"USP22 promotes HER2-driven mammary carcinoma aggressiveness by suppressing the unfolded protein response." 

Oncogene 40.23 (2021): 4004-4018.

​

• Kosinsky, Robyn Laura, et al.

"USP22-dependent HSP90AB1 expression promotes resistance to HSP90 inhibition in mammary and colorectal cancer." 

Cell Death & Disease 10.12 (2019): 1-11.

​

• Tovey, Corinne A., et al.

"γ-TuRC heterogeneity revealed by analysis of Mozart1." 

Current Biology 28.14 (2018): 2314-2323.

​

• Patel, Saroor A., et al.

​The renal lineage factor PAX8 controls oncogenic signalling in kidney cancer.

Nature (2022).