Education

Biography

Dr. Pilar Blancafort is currently an associate professor of Cancer Epigenetics at The University of Western Australia in Crawley, Australia. Her academic background involved undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2005, she established her own laboratory at the University of North Carolina, as Assistant Professor and later as tenured Associate Professor in 2011. In 2012, Professor Blancafort moved her laboratory at the University of Western Australia. Her laboratory focuses on the development of novel approaches to target cancers that are currently refractory to treatment and associated with poor outcomes, such as “triple negative breast cancers and ovarian cancers.”

She joined the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in 2014. She hold’s a Cancer Council of Western Australia (CCWA) and Australian Research Council (ARC)  Future Fellowship.

Research Interest

Genome engineering, Gene targeting, Cancer Epigenetics, Triple negative breast cancers and Ovarian cancers.

Scientific Activities:

Teaching Experience:

Professional Activities:

Honors & Awards

Publications

1. Sensitizing Basal-Like Breast Cancer to chemotherapy using Nanoparticles conjugated with interference Peptide. Anabel Sorolla, Diwei Ho, Edina Wang, Cameron W. Evans, Callum F. G. Ormonde, Rabab Rashwan, Ruhani Singh, K. Swaminathan Iyer and Pilar Blancafort. Nanoscale. 2016 Apr 28;8(17):9343-53. doi: 10.1039/c5nr08331a.
2. Systematic and unbiased comparison of Zinc Fingers, TALEs and CRISPR/dCas9 systems for activation of endogenous gene expression. Benjamin Garcia-Bloj, Colette Moses, Mahira Arooj, Janice Lam, Agustin Sgro, Rabab Rashwan, Alejandro Corvalan and Pilar Blancafort. In review. (Oncotarget).
3. Re-expression of selected epigenetically silenced candidate tumor suppressor genes in cervical cancer by TET2-directed demethylation. Mol. Christian Huisman, Monique Wijst, Matthijs Schokker, Pilar Blancafort, Martijn Terpstra, Klaas Kok, Ate van der Zee, Ed Schuuring, Gijsbertha Wisman, and Marianne Rots. Mol. Therapy 2015.
4. Benjamin Garcia-Bloj, Colette Moses, Pilar Blancafort. The CRISPR road: from bench to bedside on an RNA-guided path. Annals of Translational Medicine, 3 (13) 2015.
5. Twigger AJ, Hepworth AR, Tat Lai C, Chetwynd E, Stuebe AM, Blancafort P, Hartmann PE, Geddes DT, Kakulas F. Gene expression in breastmilk cells is associated with maternal and infant characteristics. Sci Rep. 2015 Aug 10;5:12933. doi: 10.1038/srep12933.
6. Falahi F, Sgro A, Blancafort P. Epigenome engineering in cancer: fairytale or a realistic path to the clinic? Front Oncol. 2015 Feb 6;5:22. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2015.00022.
7. Stolzenburg S, Beltran AS, Swift-Scanlan T, Rivenbark AG, Rashwan R, Blancafort P. Stable oncogenic silencing in vivo by programmable and targeted de novo DNA methylation in breast cancer. Oncogene. 2015 Feb 16. doi: 10.1038/onc.2014.470.
8. Hodgetts SI, Stagg K, Sturm M, Edel M, Blancafort P. Long live the stem cell: the use of stem cells isolated from post mortem tissues for translational strategies. Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2014 Nov;56:74-81. doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2014.09.028. Epub 2014 Oct 7.
9. Grimmer MR, Stolzenburg S, Ford E, Lister R, Blancafort P, Farnham PJ. Analysis of an artificial zinc finger epigenetic modulator: widespread binding but limited regulation Nucleic Acids Res. 2014;42(16):10856-68. doi: 10.1093/nar/gku708. Epub 2014 Aug 13.
10. Beltran A.S., Graves, L.M., Blancafort, P. Novel role of Engrailed 1 as pro-survival factor in basal-like breast cancer and engineering of interference peptides to block its oncogenic function. Oncogene. 2014 Oct 21. doi: 10.1038/onc.2013.422.
11. Prabhakaran P, Hassiotou F, Blancafort P, Filgueira L. Cisplatin induces differentiation of breast cancer cells. Front Oncol. (2013) Jun 3;3:134. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2013.00134.
12. Hassioutou, F, Hepworth, A, Beltran AS, Mathews, M, Stuebe A, Hartmann P, Filgueira L and Blancafort P. Expression of the pluripotency transcription factor OCT4 in the normal and aberrant mammary gland. Front Oncol. (2013) Apr 11;3:79. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2013.
13. Juárez-Moreno K, Erices R, Beltran AS, Stolzenburg S, Cuello-Fredes M, Owen, GI, Qian H, Blancafort P. Breaking through an epigenetic wall: Re-activation of OCT4 by KRAB-containing designer zinc finger transcription factors. Epigenetics (2013). 8 (2) Jan 11 2013.
14. Van der Gun BTF, Huisman C., Stolzenburg S., Kazemier HG, Ruiters, MHJ., Blancafort, P. Rots MG. Bidirectional modulation of endogenous EpCAM expression to unravel its function in ovarian cancer. Br J Cancer. (2013) Feb 12. doi: 10.1038/bjc.2013.45.
15. Wang Y, Su H-h, Yang Y, Zhang L, Blancafort P, Huang L. Systemic Delivery of Modified mRNA Encoding Herpes Simplex Virus 1 Thymidine Kinase for Targeted Cancer Gene Therapy. Molecular Therapy (2013) Feb;21(2):358-67. doi: 10.1038/mt.2012.250. Epub 2012 Dec 11.
16. Blancafort P, Jin J, Frye S. Writing and re-writing the epigenetic code of cancer cells: from engineered proteins to small molecules. Mol Pharmacol. (2013) Mar;83(3):563-76. doi: 10.1124/mol.112.080697. Epub 2012 Nov 13. Review.
17. Hassiotou F, Beltran A, Chetwynd E, Stuebe AM, Twigger AJ, Metzger P, Trengove N, Tat Lai C, Filgueira L, Blancafort P, Hartmann PE. Breastmilk is a Novel Source of Stem Cells with Multi-Lineage Differentiation Potential. Stem Cells. (2012) Aug 3. doi: 10.1002/stem.1188. [Epub ahead of print]
18. Stolzenburg S, Rots MG, Beltran AS, Rivenbark AS, Yuan X, Strahl BS, Blancafort P (2012) Targeted silencing of the oncogenic transcription factor SOX2 in breast cancer. Nucleic Acids Research. (2012); 40:6725-40.
19. Lara H, Wang Y, Beltran AS, Juarez-Moreno K, Yuan X, Kato S, Leisewitz AV, Cuello-Fredes M, Licea AF, Connolly DC, Huang L, Blancafort P. Targeting serous epithelial ovarian cancer with designer zinc finger transcription factors. J Biol Chem. (2012); 287:29873-86.
20. Rivenbark AG, Beltran AS, Yuan X, Rots MG, Strahl BD, Blancafort P. Epigenetic Reprogramming of Cancer Cells via Targeted DNA Methylation. Epigenetics (2012); 7:350-60.
21. Huang X, Narayanaswamy R, Fenn K, Szpakowski S, Sasaki C, Costa J, Blancafort P, Lizardi PM. Sequence-Specific Biosensors Report Drug-Induced Changes in Epigenetic Silencing in Living Cells. DNA Cell Biol. (2012) Feb 7.
22. Beltran, A and Blancafort, P. Reactivation of Maspin in Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma cells (NSCLC) by Artificial Transcription Factors (ATFs). Epigenetics. 2011 Feb 20;6(2).
23. Beltran, A. S., Russo, A, Lara, H, Fan, C, Lizardi, P. M, Blancafort, P. Suppression of breast tumor growth and metastasis by an engineered transcription factor. PLoS One. 2011. 6: 9 e24595
24. Beltran AS, Rivenbark AG, Richardson BT, Yuan X, Quian H, Hunt JP, Zimmerman E, Graves LM, Blancafort P. Generation of tumor-initiating cells by exogenous delivery of OCT4 transcription factor. Breast Cancer Res. 2011 Sep 27;13(5):R94
25. Beltran, A., Blancafort, P. Remodeling genomes with Artificial Transcription Factors and chromatin remodeling drugs. Zinc Finger Protocols. Humana Press. Methods Mol Biol. 2010;649: 163-82.
26. Beltran, A., Sun, X., Lizardi,PM, Blancafort, P. Reprogramming epigenetic silencing: Artificial Transcription Factors synergize with chromatin remodeling drugs to re-activate the tumor suppressor mammary serine protease inhibitor maspin. Mol Cancer Ther. 2008;7:1080-90.
27. Blancafort P, Beltran AS. Rational Design, Selection and Specificity of Artificial Transcription Factors (ATFs): The Influence of Chromatin in Target Gene Regulation. Comb Chem High Throughput Screen. (2008);11:146-58.
28. Blancafort, P., Tschan, M.P., Edrmann, D., Barbas III, C.F. Modulation of drug resistance by artificial transcription factors. Mol Cancer Ther. (2008); 7:688-97.
29. Beltran, A., Parikh, S., Liu, Y., Cuevas, BD, Johnson GL, Fustcher, BW and Blancafort, P. Reactivation of a dormant tumor suppressor by designed transcription factors. Oncogene. (2007);26:2791-8.
30. Beltran, A., Liu, Y., Parikh, S., Brenda, T., and Blancafort, P. Interrogating genomes with combinatorial transcription factor libraries: asking zinc finger questions. Assay Drug Dev Technol. (2006); 4:317-331
31. Dreier, B., Fuller, R.P, Segal, D.J., Lund, C., Blancafort, P., Huber, A., Koksch, B., and Barbas, C.F.III. Development of zinc finger domains for recognition of the 5’-CNN-3’ family DNA sequences and their use in the construction of artificial transcription factors. J. Biol. Chem. (2005); 280: 35588-97.
32. Blancafort, P., Chen, E., Gonzalez, B., Bergquist, S., Zijlstra, A., Guthy, D., Brachat, A., Brakenhoff, R., Quigley, J., Edrmann, D., and Barbas C.F.III. Genetic reprogramming of tumor cells by zinc finger transcription factors. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (2005); 102:11716-21.
33. Magnenat, L., Blancafort, P. and Barbas III, C.F. In vivo library selection and designed affinity manuration of polydactyl zinc finger transcription factors for ICAM–1 gene regulation. J. Mol. Biol.(2004); 341:635-49.
34. Blancafort, P, Segal, D.J., and Barbas III, C.F. Designing transcription factor architectures for drug design. Mol Pharmacol. (2004); 66:1361-71.
35. Lund, C.V, Blancafort, P., Popkov, M. and Barbas III, C.F. Promoter-targeted Phage Display Selections with Preassembled Synthetic Zinc Finger Libraries for Endogenous Gene Regulation. J.Mol. Biol. (2004); 340:599-613.
36. Blancafort,P., Magnenat, L. and Barbas III, C.F. Scanning the human genome with combinatorial transcription factor libraries. Nat Biotechnol. (2003);21:269-74.
37. Segal, D.J., Beerli R.R, Blancafort, P., Dreider, B., Effertz, K., Huber, A., Koksch, B., Magnenat, L., Valente, D., and Barbas III., C.F. (2003). Evaluation of a modular strategy for the construction of novel polydactyl zinc finger DNA-binding proteins. Biochemistry. 2003; 42:2137-48.
38. Blancafort, P., Klinck, R., Steinberg, S., Scott, J.K. and Cedergren, R. The recognition of a non-canonical base pair by a zinc finger protein. Chem Biol. (1999); 6:585-97.
39. Blancafort, P., Ferbeyre, G., Sariol, C., and Cedergren, R. Pol I-driven integrative expression vectors for yeast. Journal of Biotechnology (1997);56:41-7
40. Ferbeyre, G., Bratty, J., Blancafort, P., and Cedergren, R. (1995). Yeast as a model for hammerhead ribozyme action. Yeast, 11:15-48A.