History
Dr Richard Meehan graduated from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, with a BA degree in Genetics, and obtained my PhD at the MRC Human Geneics Unit, Scotland on the Molecular Genetic Analysis of Hepatic Cytochrome P-450s in mammals. His subsequent postdoctoral research with Dr. Adrian Bird at the IMP, Vienna focused on the characterisation of methyl-CpG binding activities (MeCP1 and MeCP2) in mammals. This was followed by I.C.R.F. Research Fellowship (with Professor Bird) at the University of Edinburgh, on the identification of additional MeCP components.
Since starting his lab in 1995 at the Biochemistry Department, George Square, Edinburgh, Dr Meehan developed Xenopus laevis as a model organism to determine the role of DNA methyltransferases (Dnmts) and MeCPs in development. A seminal observation was that the maintenance methyltransferase, xDnmt1, is required to maintain transcriptional silencing in pre-mid-blastula transition (MBT) embryos. Dr Meehan was also part of a successful collaboration with Lorraine Young and Sir Ian Wilmut, which examined the dynamics of DNA methylation patterns in early in normal and cloned sheep embryos. In contrast to mice and humans, we did not observe preferential demethylation of the paternal genome ovine zygotes.
Dr Meehan joined the MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh in 2003, where his lab focuses on molecular mechanisms by which the maintenance cytosine DNA methyltransferase, Dnmt1 and MeCPs mediate gene silencing in early embryos, cancer and somatic cells. Recently we identified a non-catalytic transcriptional repressor role for xDnmt1 in early frog development that accounts for gene silencing in pre-MBT embryos. This adds to an intriguing literature that specifies non-catalytic roles for DNMT1.
We have initiated our joint Breakthrough Breast cancer program with colleagues in the HGU (Wendy Bickmore) and CRUK (including Nick Gilbert and Bernie Ramsahoye) that will focus on the role of epigenetics and chromatin structure in breast cancer initiation and progression.
Dr Meehan is an honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and an associate member of the epigenome network of excellence www.epigenome-noe.net/.
