Serena Nik-Zainal is a British-Malaysian clinician who is a consultant in clinical genetics and

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

advanced clinician scientist at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. She makes use of

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

for clinical applications. She was awarded the

Crick Lecture The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture is a prize lecture of the Royal Society established in 2003 with an endowment from Sydney Brenner, the late Francis Crick's close friend and former colleague. It is delivered annually in biology, particularly the ...

by the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 2021.

Early life and education

Nik-Zainal was born in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Her father was a cardiologist who was involved in the first

coronary artery bypass surgery Coronary artery bypass surgery, also known as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG, pronounced "cabbage") is a surgical procedure to treat coronary artery disease (CAD), the buildup of plaques in the arteries of the heart. It can relieve chest pai ...

to take place in Malaysia. She was supported by

Petronas Petroliam Nasional Berhad (National Petroleum Limited), commonly known as Petronas, is a Malaysian oil and gas company. Established in 1974 and wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested with all oil and gas reso ...

to attend the

, where she studied medicine. She moved to the

Wellcome Sanger Institute The Wellcome Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is located on the Wellcome Ge ...

in 2009, where she started doctoral research using

whole genome sequencing Whole genome sequencing (WGS), also known as full genome sequencing, complete genome sequencing, or entire genome sequencing, is the process of determining the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of the DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a s ...

to better understand breast cancer. Whole genome sequencing allows for Nik-Zainal to understand the frequency, distribution and mutation patterns of cancer. She showed that it was possible to identify mutational signatures using downstream analysis, and that algorithms could be used to identify abnormalities quickly. These signatures are left by mutations that occur during the development of cancer. During her research she identified the

hypermutation Somatic hypermutation (or SHM) is a cellular mechanism by which the immune system adapts to the new foreign elements that confront it (e.g. microbes), as seen during class switching. A major component of the process of affinity maturation, SHM dive ...

kataegis In molecular biology, kataegis describes a pattern of localized hypermutations identified in some cancer genomes, in which a large number of highly patterned basepair mutations occur in a small region of DNA. The mutational clusters are usually ...

Research and career

Nik-Zainal was awarded a

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

Clinical Fellowship in 2013. She moved to the

, where she explored

of tumours. Her research combined computational processes and cell-based model systems. In 2017 Nik-Zainal moved to the

, supported by a

Advanced Clinician Scientist fellowship. Her research group investigate the physiology of mutagenic activity. She has studied both driver and passenger mutations. Passenger mutations can be used to understand how DNA is damaged and repaired during

tumorigenesis Carcinogenesis, also called oncogenesis or tumorigenesis, is the formation of a cancer, whereby normal cells are transformed into cancer cells. The process is characterized by changes at the cellular, genetic, and epigenetic levels and abno ...

. Nik-Zainal looks to identify mutational signatures in human cancers and the aetiologies that give rise to them. Nik-Zainal leads the clinical research project ''Insignia'', which researches mutational signatures in people with

neurodegeneration A neurodegenerative disease is caused by the progressive loss of structure or function of neurons, in the process known as neurodegeneration. Such neuronal damage may ultimately involve cell death. Neurodegenerative diseases include amyotrophic ...

, ageing syndromes and

DNA repair DNA repair is a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as radiation can cause DNA dam ...

defects. Nik-Zainal has continued to develop computational approaches to identify DNA damage in tumours, insight into which can help to determine the most effective treatment in cancer patients. , she has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 63.

Awards and honours

She was awarded the

by the

for her work on he aetiology of cancer and contributions to cancer therapies. In 2021 she was awarded a Research Professorship at the

National Institute for Health Research The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the British government’s major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research. With a budget of over £1.2 billion in 2020–21, its mission is to "impr ...

(NIHR). She was the first woman to win the Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award in 2019.

Selected publications

Her publications * ''Signatures of mutational processes in human cancer'' * ''Landscape of somatic mutations in 560 breast cancer whole-genome sequences'' * ''Massive genomic rearrangement acquired in a single catastrophic event during cancer development''

Personal life

Nik-Zainal has two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nik-Zainal, Serena Malaysian women academics Malaysian biologists Malaysian women scientists Cancer researchers British people of Malaysian descent Alumni of the University of Cambridge Academics of the University of Cambridge NIHR Research Professors Year of birth missing (living people) Living people