Richard Meehan's Biography

Richard Meehan, Leader/Senior Scientist, Western General Hospital

He studied Genetics at Trinity College Dublin and did his PhD on the genetics of Cytochrome P-450s in Edinburgh. Further training at the Vienna's Research Institute of Molecular Pathology with Adrian Bird and later at Edinburgh was centred on epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation leading to the identification of MeCP2, a methyl CpG binding protein, which is mutated in Rett syndrome.

In 2008, his lab made the seminal observation that the non-catalytic repressor function of xDnmt1 rather then its catalytic methyltransferase activity is required to maintain gene silencing in early frog embryos (PMID:18305009). With Professor Sir Ian Wilmut and Professor Lorraine Young, he demonstrated altered DNA methylation patterns of cloned sheep (PMID:14998909).

In 2003, he joined the MRC Edinburgh Human Genetics Unit and helped set up the collaborative Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research group. They recently showed that aberrantly methylated genes distinguish breast tumours of different lineages (PMID: 21368160). His current work investigates the newly discovered modification, 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), and its dynamic role in the DNA methylation network (PMID: 22106369).

His PhD interest in toxicology has continued as a member of the (MARCAR) consortium, which aims to develop short-term assays indicative of exposure to non-genotoxic carcinogens with an emphasis on epi-genomics: http://www.imi-marcar.eu/.