Lab Members
Dr. Sumitra Mohan
Research Associate (Postdoc)
​Sumitra joined the Nagarajan Lab as a Research Associate in the summer of 2022 and is interested in the studying the role of chromatin remodeling factors and other upstream regulators of enhancer RNAs in breast cancers. She has over ten years of experience in oncology research and biomarker studies with a focus on Next Generation sequencing analyses of patients’ samples with solid cancers. Sumitra completed her PhD in Austria and a postdoc at CRUK Manchester Institute, analysing the clinical utility of liquid biopsies from patients with solid cancers.
Dr. Hayden Jones
Research Associate (Postdoc)
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Hayden completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science at The University of Manchester. During his time there, he conducted research on the transcription factor ZMYM2. After that, he was accepted into The British Heart Foundation's 4-year PhD programme at The University of Manchester. His research focused on studying the role of lncRNAs and enhancers in the pathogenesis of atrial fibrillation. Following his PhD, Hayden joined the lab in April 2024 to investigate the role of the chromatin architecture complexes in resistance to endocrine therapy in breast and prostate cancer.
Dr. Parsa Pirhady
Joint Research Associate (Postdoc)
Parsa is working on the CRUK Biology to Prevention award-funded project to understand how the resistance mechanisms of tamoxifen in breast cancer prevention using multiomic analyses.
Dr. Karim Azar
Research Technician
Karim joined the Nagarajan Lab as a Research Technician in July 2024. He completed his PhD in molecular biology in Glioblastoma Multiforme and drug development at the Wolverhampton University. He was working on Mesothelioma Innovative UK project as a postdoc at University of Wolverhampton. In Nagarajan lab, Karim generally supports the lab management and assists in various projects.
Grace Eckersley
MRC-CASE funded PhD student
Grace completed an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Manchester. During her studies, she undertook a placement at AstraZeneca, where she worked on increasing the expression of challenging proteins. She joined Nagarajan lab in October 2024 for her PhD, focusing on the impact of chromatin remodelling complexes in drug resistance and metastasis.
Yin-Wen Chen
Self-funded PhD student
Wen completed her undergraduate degree in Medical Sciences at Fudan University, followed by a master’s degree in Immunology and Inflammatory Disease at the University of Glasgow. She then worked as a research assistant at National Sun Yat-sen University, focusing on the role of TROP2 and key glycoprotein enzymes in immune regulation and drug resistance in lung cancer. In 2025, Wen joined our lab to study the role of chromatin remodelling proteins in maintaining the quiescent nature of aggressive breast cancer cells before metastasis, and how these processes crosstalk with immune regulation.
Naomi Eastwood
MCRC-CRUK joint PhD student
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Naomi completed her undergraduate degree in Medical Sciences at the University of Exeter in 2021. During her degree she undertook an industrial placement year at GlaxoSmithKline working in the functional genomics team which sparked her interest in the field of cancer epigenetics. She joined Nagarajan lab in October 2021 of her PhD exploring the role of chromatin remodellers in the context of lobular breast cancer.
Past members
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Nathnael Tuffa - MSc student 2025
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Aamena Patel - Research Associate in Bioinformatics 2024-2025
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Jigar Harishkumar Sheth - MSc student 2024
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Anamika Yadav - Research Intern 2024
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Simone Ward - Research Technician 2021-2024
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Danielle Olivier - MSc student 2023
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Octavianus Giovani - MSc student 2023
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Jakub Peczek - Summer Intern 2023
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Maria Aurelia Aguayo Galeano - MSc student 2022
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Tal Sadeh - Postdoc 2021-2022
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Danwei Wang - MSc student 2021