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  Karen Bunting, PhD
  
  Post-Doctoral Fellow

I graduated from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, with a Bachelor of Biomedical Science, followed by an Honours degree in 2001 in the Infectious Diseases Laboratories, IMVS, where I studied the pathogenesis of haemorrhagic forms of dengue virus. After working as a Research Assistant with Assoc. Prof. Richard D’Andrea in the Leukaemia Biology Laboratory, Child Health Research Institute, Adelaide, on mechanisms of GM-CSF receptor signalling, I drove 1200 km to the “bush capital” – Canberra – where I completed my PhD research with Prof. M. Frances Shannon at The John Curtin School of Medical Research at The Australian National University in 2007. My PhD thesis focussed on the role of the NF-kappaB transcription factor, c-Rel, in inducible T cell gene transcription. Here, I developed a keen interest in the mechanisms of gene expression and chromatin organization in cells of the immune system. After deciding that the 24-hour flight, language difficulties, and saying farewell to the Australian native animals and vegemite was worth it, I made the move to New York city and joined as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Melnick lab at the Weill Cornell Medical College.

Here, my work is focussed on understanding the mechanisms of BCL6-mediated gene organization in normal and malignant B cells. I am using chromosome conformation capture experiments in combination with high-throughput sequencing to explore (1) the way in which nuclear topology controls gene expression patterning in normal B cells, (2) how this is altered in DLBCL, and (3) whether the higher-order organization of genes in DLBCL is a BCL6-mediated event.