Dr Harikrishnan Kaipananickal
MSc | PhD
Hari is a Molecular biologist with a focus on epigenetic studies centred on DNA methylation, histone modification and non-coding RNA regulation. Hari undertook his PhD at the Department of Botany, University of Calicut, India and then moved to Melbourne and joined Prof Sam El-Osta’s laboratory at the Baker Heart Research Institute in 2003. Hari’s postdoctoral work explored key epigenetic mechanisms involved in chromatin structure and gene transcription leads to major breakthroughs in our understanding of transcriptional regulation of methylated genes mediated by the methyl CpG binding protein MeCP2 (Nature Genetics 2005, 2006).
Current projects include exploring epigenetic mechanisms in beta cell regeneration using EZH2 inhibitors and the role of SET7 methyl transferase in diabetic vascular complications. Actively involved in supervising and mentoring Master’s and Doctoral students from Monash University and the University of Melbourne.