Dr Erika Mancini
Academic Background
Dr Mancini studied Physics in Italy where she obtained a Laurea (1st class Honours Degree) with a thesis in Radiation Biophysics at the University of Naples. She carried out her doctoral research in Cryo-Electron Microscopy at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany and she took a Ph.D in Crystallography from Birkbeck College, London in 2000. Following the award of an EMBO long-term postdoctoral fellowship Dr Mancini moved to Oxford to join the Division of Structural Biology. She is currently a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine. In 2008 she was awarded an MRC New Investigator Award.
Undergraduate Teaching
Structural Proteomics, Biology of Complex Systems
Lecture 'Viral machinery'
Postgraduate Teaching
Dr Mancini teaches various courses for the DPhil programme in Structural Biology offered by the Wellcome Trust. She also supervises graduate research rotation projects.
Research Interests
Dr Mancini's research focuses on the epigenetic regulation of gene transcription by chromatin remodeling proteins. Packaging of DNA into chromatin is a major obstacle to transcription as well as to DNA repair, recombination and replication. DNA can be however be rendered accessible by the action of energy-consuming 'chromatin remodeling factors' which alter the histone-DNA interactions within the nucleosomes such that the DNA sequence can be recognized by regulatory factors. Dr Mancini is interested in the regulation of chromatin by chromatin remodeling factors during the processes of transcription and the ways in which this process is deregulated in cancer.
Hobbies
Dr Mancini enjoys cooking, skiing and diving.
Links
Subject notes for courses taught at Jesus College: Medicine
See also Dr Mancini's personal page on the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine website.
