Michael Higgins

Biography

Dr. Michael Higgins joined the faculty in 2016 as an Associate Professor of Oncology in the Division of Breast Surgery, Department of Genetics and Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. His research interests include: It is well established that germline and somatic mutations contribute to the transformation of a normal cell to a cancer cell. In addition to these genetic insults to the genome, a rapidly increasing body of evidence has demonstrated that alterations in DNA methylation and chromatin structure can contribute to carcinogenesis by changing the expression level of otherwise normal, mutation-free genes. The mechanisms by which one such "epigenetic" phenomenon, genomic imprinting, is involved in the development of cancer represent a major effort in our laboratory. Genomic imprinting results from epigenetic modification in the germ line of a small number of mammalian genes and is manifested as preferential expression of one of the two parental alleles in a parent-of-origin manner. Most recently we have focussed on elucidating the function of the KvDMR1 locus in human chromosome 11p15.5 (mouse distal chromosome 7) which has characteristics of other cis-acting regulatory sequence elements known as imprinting control regions (ICRs) including differential maternal-specific methylation.

Research Interest

Molecular genetics of Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS); epigenetic imprinting and cancer.