Dr Belinda Nedjai
Deputy Director of Research
As Reader in Cancer Biomarker and Epigenetics and Director of the Molecular Epidemiology Laboratory, Belinda leads the Molecular Epidemiology (MEL) research team. She holds a PhD in genetics and functional genomics from Queen Mary, Bart’s and The London School of Medicine, and a Masters degree in cellular and molecular physiopathology, obtained from University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI) in Paris, France. The combination of strong research background in functional genomics and inflammation with 5 years of strategy consulting as Head of genetics for GeneU, a start-up company, has given her unique insight into the commercial applications of next generation sequencing technologies. She conducted research for 8 years at Imperial College London as a post-doctoral researcher and then Research Fellow. Through the years, she developed an extensive knowledge in functional genomics and the functional consequences of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on various inflammatory disorders with strong inflammatory components. At Imperial she successfully managed to spin out a company from one of my research project: GeneU. She then spent 5 years at GeneU as head of genetic research where she created a relationship database merging genomics data with observational data (lifestyle) and biomarkers to recommend specific ingredients to relieve inflammation in skin cancer patients and healthy participants. She patented her concept (UK patent GB20110021917). This project merged genetics and epidemiologic knowledge with bioengineering to identify biomarkers.
She joined Queen Mary University originally as a Senior Research Fellow; she was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2020 and then Reader in 2022. Her primary research focus is the application of novel quantitative technologies for discovery and validation of prognostic DNA methylation biomarkers. Her main aim is to identify and develop cost-effective tests for the diagnosis of prostate, breast, colorectal and cervical cancer, and the prediction of outcomes in cancer patients. Recent successes include improved methods to triage women infected by papillomavirus. Their classifier combining DNA methylation of HPV and human genes is a strong contender to triage women infected by carcinogenic HPV. They also developed a 6 gene methylation classifier to improve the management of men diagnosed with prostate cancer but placed on active surveillance.
Future research will include discovery of biomarkers for early detection of epithelial cancer using a pan-cancer approach. They have already identified a few methylation biomarkers able to predict cancer at an early stage in several epithelial cancers. They aim to improve their classifiers using our multi-omics NGS approach. Another aim would be to refine such biomarkers in various ethnic groups to increase the early detection potential.