Rachel Fellows

Rachel studied for her PhD with Dr Patrick Varga-Weisz at the Babraham Institute. Her research focussed on how histone acetylation and crotonylation, epigenetic switches that promote gene expression, are linked to the metabolism of gut microbiome. After her PhD, Rachel was a visiting scholar with Dr Kazuyuki Ohbo, at the Yokohama City University in Japan, where she investigated how knock-out of the protein Wfdc5a resulted in infertile male mice. Rachel then did a post-doctoral scholarship at the University of California Irvine, where she helped to identify that in mice with loss of one copy of Apc clock disruption drives loss of both copies of the Apc gene which hyperactivates Wnt signalling and accelerates tumour progression. She also compared gut microbiome composition between clock disrupted and cancer mice, finding that common groups of bacteria present in the gut microbiome including Bacteroides, Helicobacter and Megasphaera are altered in both conditions. Rachel now works at the MRC Toxicology Unit at the University of Cambridge as the Science Communication and Public Engagement Manager. She is passionate about sharing scientific knowledge with people of all ages and backgrounds. Rachel loves combining science and creativity, with writing, digital art, textiles and painting.