Professor Faraz Mardakheh

Position

Tutorial Fellow in Biochemistry

Qualifications 

BSc Hons. (Birmingham)
PhD (Birmingham)

Academic Positions

Tutorial Fellow in Biochemistry, Brasenose College
Associate Professor

Academic Background and Previous Positions

In 2010, I joined the laboratory of Professor John Heath at the University of Birmingham as a PhD student, studying oncogenic signal transduction in cancer. After completing my PhD, I joined the laboratory of the late Professor Chris Marshall at the Institute of Cancer Research as a postdoctoral fellow, to study cancer invasion and metastasis. An unexpected discovery during my postdoctoral research steered my focus towards RNA Binding Proteins (RBPs) and their role in cancer invasion. This led to receiving an MRC Career Development Award fellowship in 2017 to establish my own research group at the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, focusing on the role of RBPs in cancer development and progression. In 2024, I moved my laboratory to the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, where I continue my research on RBPs and their roles in cancer.

Undergraduate Teaching Areas

Biochemistry
Molecular Biology 

Graduate Teaching Areas

Biochemistry
Molecular Biology
RNA Biology

Research Interests

My laboratory is interested in understanding how RNA binding proteins (RBPs), a key group of proteins that control RNA fate and function in our cells, become dysregulated during the course of cancer development and progression, in order to promote different aspects of malignancy. My team uses various cutting-edge quantitative proteomics, RNA-sequencing, and bioinformatics methodologies, along with a variety of cell-based and biochemical assays, to study RBP regulation and function in cancer. Through a detailed mechanistic understanding of cancer-relevant RBPs, our ultimate goal is to develop novel RNA therapeutic-based strategies to combat cancer.

Publications

Khoroshkin MS, Buyan A, Dodel M, Navickas A, Yu J, Trejo F, Doty A, Baratam R, Zhou S, Lee SB, Joshi T, Garcia K, Choi B, Miglani S, Subramanyam V, Modi H, Carpenter C, Markett D, Corces R, Mardakheh FK*, Kulakovskiy IV*, Goodarzi H* (2024) 'Systematic Identification of Post-Transcriptional Regulatory Modules.' Nature Communications (In Press).

Dodel M, Guiducci G, Dermit M, Krishnamurthy S, Alard  EL , Capraro F, Rekad Z, Stojic L*, Mardakheh FK* (2024) 'TREX reveals proteins that bind to specific RNA regions in living cells.' Nature Methods (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-024-02181-1).

Azman MS, Alard EL, Dodel M, Capraro F, Faraway R, Dermit M, Fan W, Chakraborty A, Ule J, Mardakheh FK*. (2023) 'An ERK1/2-driven RNA-binding switch in nucleolin drives ribosome biogenesis and pancreatic tumorigenesis downstream of RAS oncogene.' EMBO Journal  (https://doi.org/10.15252/embj.2022110902).

Fish L, Khoroshkin M, Navickas A, Garcia K, Culbertson B, Hänisch B, Zhang S, Nguyen HCB, Soto LM, Dermit M, Mardakheh FK, Molina H, Alarcón C, Najafabadi HS, Goodarzi H. (2021) 'A prometastatic splicing program regulated by SNRPA1 interactions with structured RNA elements'. Science  (https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc7531).

Dermit M , Dodel M , Lee FCY, Azman MS , Schwenzer H, Jones JL, Blagden SP, Ule J, Mardakheh FK*. (2020) 'Subcellular mRNA localization regulates ribosome biogenesis in migrating cells.' Developmental Cell (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2020.10.006).

* corresponding author

Email 

[email protected]

Links

https://www.mardakhehlab.info/