Prof. Ian Tomlinson, Department of Oncology, University of Oxford

Prof. Simon Buczacki, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford

Prof. Simon Leedham, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford

Giulia graduated at the University of Turin in Italy in 2010 before starting her DPhil in Oncology at the University of Oxford. In 2014 she moved to The Institute of Cancer Research in London working in the team of Prof. Richard Houlston where she investigated how non-coding germline and somatic variations in regulatory elements can affect gene regulation in colorectal cancer. She joined the team of Prof. Adam Mead in 2020 at the University of Oxford, and she was awarded a Leukaemia UK John Goldman fellowship in 2021 to study how aberrant gene regulation contributes to the development of juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia (JMML), a rare childhood leukaemia initiated by mutations in the RAS pathway. In September 2025 she joined the Department of Oncology as a Group Leader.

Colorectal cancer development is driven by somatic mutations in genes within the RAS pathway, such as KRAS and BRAF. Whereas RAS signalling is known to sustain tumour growth, effective targeted therapy to tackle RAS directly, or its downstream targets, has proven exceedingly difficult to develop. Our research focuses on understanding the role of aberrant RAS signalling activation in controlling gene regulation in colon cancer, with the ultimate goal of discovering innovative therapeutic strategies by identifying transcription factor and chromatin factor dependencies.

Employing cutting-edge technologies (bulk RNAseq/ATACseq, 10X single-cell multiome, DNA methylation, CRISPR-editing) in organoid models, iPSCs and primary samples, my group works on studying the epigenetic reprogramming within the cancer stem cells (CSCs) and the tumour microenvironment, investigating how epigenetic plasticity can promote cancer growth and therapy resistance.