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Areas
Technologies
  • Transcriptomics
  • CRISPR
  • Single cell biology

About

Stephin completed his PhD at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 2015 studying transcriptional regulation in breast cancer. After completing his degree he joined the lab of Professor Ricky Johnstone at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Here he developed his own independent research lines investigating fundamental mechanisms of RNA Polymerase II mediated gene regulation and the targeting thereof in cancer.

At the start of 2022, Stephin started his own lab at WEHI in Melbourne in the Epigenetics and Development division.

His work is supported by two prestigious fellowships from the Snow Medical Research Organisation and CSL.

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Publications

Selected publications from Dr Stephin Vervoort

Djajawi TM, Huber A, Rivera SM, Srivaths A, Salehi M, Gunay G, Gerak C, Neil L, Ozaydin O, Voulgaris O, Al Halawani A, Gannon D, Khoshdoozmasouleh N, Jenkins LJ, Chan KF, Behren A, Ernst M, Mielke LA, Lelliott EJ, Dong H, Feltham R, Sutton VR, Trapani JA, Mariadason JM, Pal B, Martin SJ, Vervoort SJ, Kearney CJ. A TAK1 cytokine toxicity checkpoint controls anti-cancer immunity. Cell Reports. 2026;45(1):10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116665

Devlin JR, Martin B, Bartonicek N, Ting K, Fan Z, Todorovski I, Bjelosevic F, Verschoor S, Ciccone A, Trapani JA, Horvath A, Tinsley E, Fraser P, Newbold A, Sandow JJ, Muscat A, Simpson KJ, Geyer M, Vervoort SJ, Johnstone RW. A CDK11-dependent RNA polymerase II pause-checkpoint precedes CDK9-mediated transition to transcriptional elongation. Molecular Cell. 2025;85(17):10.1016/j.molcel.2025.08.001

Vervoort SJ, Devlin JR, Kwiatkowski N, Teng M, Gray NS, Johnstone RW. Targeting transcription cycles in cancer. Nature Reviews Cancer. 2022;22(1):10.1038/s41568-021-00411-8

Lelliott EJ, Kong IY, Zethoven M, Ramsbottom KM, Martelotto LG, Meyran D, Zhu JJ, Costacurta M, Kirby L, Sandow JJ, Lim L, Dominguez PM, Todorovski I, Haynes NM, Beavis PA, Neeson PJ, Hawkins ED, McArthur GA, Parish IA, Johnstone RW, Oliaro J, Sheppard KE, Kearney CJ, Vervoort SJ. CDK4/6 inhibition promotes anti-tumor immunity through the induction of T cell memory. Cancer Discovery. 2021;11(10):10.1158/2159-8290.cd-20-1554

Vervoort SJ, Welsh SA, Devlin JR, Barbieri E, Knight DA, Offley S, Bjelosevic S, Costacurta M, Todorovski I, Kearney CJ, Sandow JJ, Fan Z, Blyth B, McLeod V, Vissers JHA, Pavic K, Martin BP, Gregory G, Demosthenous E, Zethoven M, Kong IY, Hawkins ED, Hogg SJ, Kelly MJ, Newbold A, Simpson KJ, Kauko O, Harvey KF, Ohlmeyer M, Westermarck J, Gray N, Gardini A, Johnstone RW. The PP2A-Integrator-CDK9 axis fine-tunes transcription and can be targeted therapeutically in cancer. Cell. 2021;184(12):10.1016/j.cell.2021.04.022

Hogg SJ, Motorna O, Cluse LA, Johanson TM, Coughlan HD, Raviram R, Myers RM, Costacurta M, Todorovski I, Pijpers L, Bjelosevic S, Williams T, Huskins SN, Kearney CJ, Devlin JR, Fan Z, Jabbari JS, Martin BP, Fareh M, Kelly MJ, Dupéré-Richer D, Sandow JJ, Feran B, Knight D, Khong T, Spencer A, Harrison SJ, Gregory G, Wickramasinghe VO, Webb AI, Taberlay PC, Bromberg KD, Lai A, Papenfuss AT, Smyth GK, Allan RS, Licht JD, Landau DA, Abdel-Wahab O, Shortt J, Vervoort SJ, Johnstone RW. Targeting histone acetylation dynamics and oncogenic transcription by catalytic P300/CBP inhibition. Molecular Cell. 2021;81(10):10.1016/j.molcel.2021.04.015

Srivaths A, Djajawi TM, Al Halawani A, Needham K, Gerak C, Neil L, Rivera SM, Sen B, Vervoort SJ, Mariadason JM, Kearney CJ. Abstract B021: Genome-wide CRISPR Screen Identifies Menin as a Mediator of Encorafenib Plus Cetuximab Resistance in BRAF V600E-mutant Colorectal Cancer. Cancer Research. 2026;86(5_Supplement_1):10.1158/1538-7445.rasoncother26-b021

Huber A, Djajawi TM, Rivera IS, Vervoort SJ, Kearney CJ. CRISPR screens define unified hallmarks of cancer cell-autonomous immune evasion. Cell Reports. 2026;45(1):10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116738

Dutt M, Liao L, Kim HJ, Blazev R, Chan A, Kore H, Bezawork-Geleta A, Dong L, Rivera IS, Wee NKY, Molendijk J, Wong JPH, Haynes VR, Uribe V, Lynch GS, Smith KA, Montgomery MK, Watt MJ, Yang P, Dodd GT, Vervoort SJ, Sims NA, Parker BL. Phosphoproteomics of aged insulin-resistant bone identifies P70S6K phosphorylation of AFF4 as a gene-specific transcriptional regulator. Nature Communications. 2025;17(1):10.1038/s41467-025-68106-4

Bao Y, Cacioppo R, Crisp A, Shlamovitz I, Sale JE, Vidakovic AT, Vervoort SJ, Zeller A. Protocol for double-crosslinking ChIP-seq to improve data quality and enhance detection of challenging chromatin targets. STAR Protocols. 2025;6(4):10.1016/j.xpro.2025.104171

Lab research projects

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