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About

Hamish King completed his undergraduate and Honours at Flinders University in Adelaide, before moving to the United Kingdom to undertake his PhD training in molecular epigenetics at the University of Oxford with Prof Rob Klose. While there he studied how gene expression is regulated by chromatin-modifying complexes, and how sequence-specific transcription factors cooperate with chromatin remodellers to access and bind the genome. Following his PhD, Hamish was a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Dr Louisa James at the Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London, where he studied the transcriptional and epigenetic regulatory networks that determine B cell identity and function in the human immune system.

Building on these discoveries, Hamish joined WEHI as a Laboratory Head in 2022, where his team is focused on understanding how defects in the epigenetic control of gene expression are involved in human autoimmune disease.

To achieve this, the lab uses both experimental and computational approaches, combined with ex vivo immune cell cultures for human B cell maturation. We integrate results from our lab-based analyses with datasets from “real world” patient single-cell transcriptomic and epigenomic datasets, and vice versa, with the long-term aim to provide translational insights into how epigenetic dysregulation in the immune system is linked with disease.

Publications

Selected publications from Dr Hamish King

Quig A, Kriachkov V, King H. Mapping and modelling human B cell maturation in the germinal centre. Current Opinion in Immunology. 2024;87:10.1016/j.coi.2024.102428

D’Avola A, Legrave N, Tajan M, Chakravarty P, Shearer RL, King HW, Kluckova K, Cheung EC, Clear AJ, Gunawan AS, Zhang L, James LK, MacRae JI, Gribben JG, Calado DP, Vousden KH, Riches JC. PHGDH is required for germinal center formation and is a therapeutic target in MYC-driven lymphoma. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2024;134(4):10.1172/jci179917

Hayat A, Carter EP, King HW, Ors A, Doe A, Teijeiro SA, Charrot S, Godinho S, Cutillas P, Mohammed H, Grose RP, Ficz G. Low HER2 enables dedifferentiation and transformation of normal breast epithelial cells via chromatin opening. Disease Models & Mechanisms. 2023;16(2):10.1242/dmm.049894

Perrett M, Pickard L, Kumar E, Palladino G, Khan F, Edmondson C, Knight C, Poynton E, Matthews J, Araf S, Clear AJ, Calaminici M, Gribben JG, King H, Efremova M, Wang J, Okosun J. Longitudinal Single Cell Analyses Reveal the Co-Evolutionary Dynamics of the Tumor and Microenvironment Accompanying Follicular Lymphoma Transformation. Blood. 2022;140(Supplement 1):10.1182/blood-2022-159995

Hornsby E, King HW, Peiris M, Buccafusca R, Lee W-YJ, Wing ES, Blackshaw LA, Lindsay JO, Stagg AJ. The cation channel TRPM8 influences the differentiation and function of human monocytes. Journal of Leukocyte Biology. 2022;112(3):10.1002/jlb.1hi0421-181r

Conde CD, Xu C, Jarvis L, Rainbow D, Wells S, Gomes T, Howlett S, Suchanek O, Polanski K, King H, Mamanova L, Huang N, Szabo P, Richardson L, Bolt L, Fasouli E, Mahbubani K, Prete M, Tuck L, Richoz N, Tuong Z, Campos L, Mousa H, Needham E, Pritchard S, Li T, Elmentaite R, Park J, Rahmani E, Chen D, Menon D, Bayraktar O, James L, Meyer K, Yosef N, Clatworthy, Sims P, Farber D, Saeb-Parsy K, Jones J, Teichmann. Cross-tissue immune cell analysis reveals tissue-specific features in humans. Science. 2022;376(6594):10.1126/science.abl5197

D’Avola A, Legrave N, Tajan M, Chakravarty P, Shearer RL, King HW, Kluckova K, Cheung EC, Clear AJ, Gunawan AS, Zhang L, James LK, MacRae JI, Gribben JG, Calado DP, Vousden KH, Riches JC. PHGDH is required for germinal center formation and is a therapeutic target in MYC-driven lymphoma. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2022;132(9):10.1172/jci153436

Kleshchevnikov V, Shmatko A, Dann E, Aivazidis A, King HW, Li T, Elmentaite R, Lomakin A, Kedlian V, Gayoso A, Jain MS, Park JS, Ramona L, Tuck E, Arutyunyan A, Vento-Tormo R, Gerstung M, James L, Stegle O, Bayraktar OA. Cell2location maps fine-grained cell types in spatial transcriptomics. Nature Biotechnology. 2022;40(5):10.1038/s41587-021-01139-4

D’Avola A, Legrave N, Tajan M, Chakravarty P, Shearer R, King H, Cheung E, Clear AJ, Gunawan AS, Zhang L, James L, MacRae J, Gribben J, Calado DP, Vousden K, Riches JC. Phosphoglycerate Dehydrogenase Is Required for Germinal Center Formation and Is a Therapeutic Target in MYC-driven Lymphoma. Blood. 2021;138(Supplement 1):10.1182/blood-2021-150442

King HW, Wells KL, Shipony Z, Kathiria AS, Wagar LE, Lareau C, Orban N, Capasso R, Davis MM, Steinmetz LM, James LK, Greenleaf WJ. Integrated single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics reveals strong germinal center–associated etiology of autoimmune risk loci. Science Immunology. 2021;6(64):10.1126/sciimmunol.abh3768

Lab research projects

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