Michael Nicholson Profile
Michael Nicholson

@Mdnicholson3

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Chancellor's Fellow (~Asst. Prof.) @EdinUniMaths | Math modelling for somatic genomics | https://t.co/LfwTmmWzVR

Edinburgh, Scotland
Joined August 2015
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
4 months
RT @luke_phys: Want to work on cutting edge theoretical research to advance our mechanistic understanding of biological processes? Do you e….
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
5 months
RT @ramon_grima: I have an opening for a postdoctoral research associate in my group at @EdinburghUni to develop new mathematical models o….
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
7 months
#PhD opportunity: fully funded PhD position at the University of Edinburgh on 'Modelling stochastic emergence of antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations' with @HelenKAlexander and myself. For more info on the project see here: or get in touch!.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
Led by the brilliant @xellbrunet. Excellent collaboration with @group_tomlinson; Tibor Antal (@EdinUniMaths); @ISoriano_Moruno; @NathalieFeeley; @drthorn. Feedback would be most welcome.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
New paper! Maximally dysregulating APC should provide the maximal selective advantage to colorectal cancer cells? Doesn't appear so. We quantify 'just-right' APC inactivation, at scale, in a variety of contexts, in our preprint:.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
Happy to share that I'll be joining the School of Maths @EdinUniMaths as a Chancellor's fellow (~tenure track assistant prof). Will be continuing to apply probabilistic thinking to genomics. Very grateful for all support and encouragement I've received. Come say hi if in town!.
@ColSciEng
College of Science and Engineering, Edinburgh Uni
1 year
20 outstanding early career researchers @ColSciEng have received @EdinburghUni prestigious Chancellor’s Fellowships and will begin a 5-year tenure track that invests in researchers delivering cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and innovation
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
Highly creative, elegant analysis providing deep insights on DNA damage induced mutagenesis. Please do give it a read. Congrats to @craigandersn, @odom_lab, @S_J_Aitken, @mst_paralogue. It was a privilege to contribute.
@S_J_Aitken
Sarah Aitken
1 year
🎉New paper🎉Introducing #StrandInteractions, the sequel to #LesionSegregation, published today @Nature. Strand-resolved mutagenicity of DNA damage and repair Here’s what we discovered about (a)symmetry in replication, transcription & #mutagenicNER.[1/13].
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
Great PNAS commentary piece highlighting our recent work on DNA damage:transcription interactions.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
RT @gcaravagna: [ Cancer biomarker discovery is historically mutation-centric, often neglecting the key role of ge….
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
This work has been a fantastic collaboration with Martin Taylor (@mst_paralogue ), Craig Anderson (@craigandersn ), Sarah Aitken (@S_J_Aitken ) and Duncan Odom (@odom_lab ). We'd welcome any comments or thoughts.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
The observed 5' bias in repair efficiency is a consequence of polymerase not restarting, but this pattern wouldn't exist for lower damage burdens. High damage mutation patterns != linear amplification of low damage mutation patterns.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
When repair is triggered, RNA polymerases generally don't restart transcription from the repair site; in fact the data is consistent with the polymerases always dissociating with repair 10/n
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
RNA polymerases frequently bypass damage with triggering repair with lesions transcribed-over 1-3 times before repair. While small alkylation adducts are unlikely to be an efficient barrier to gene expression, they frequently result in mutant transcripts 9/n.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
To map the mutation patterns into estimates of how frequently polymerases detect damage and their fate after repair, we developed a stochastic model characterising the interactions of RNA polymerases with damage. Analysing the mouse data through the model we conclude that: 8/n
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
As expected, higher transcription -> higher repair. More surprisingly, we observed a gradient of repair efficiency moving through the gene body 5' -> 3' for genes with intermediate expression levels 7/n
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
Lesion segregation patterns offered comparison of mutation burden resulting from template strand damage (affected by TCR) to coding strand damage (unaffected by TCR), allowing quantification of TCR efficiency through genes 6/n.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
To put numbers on these outcomes, we analysed mutation patterns from a mouse model of liver cancer induced by an alkylating agent 5/n.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
Removing damage = good. Stalling polymerases and stopping transcription = bad. So how frequently is repair initiated?. To minimise disruption of transcription, it would be helpful if polymerases restarted transcribing immediately after repair, how frequently does this happen? 4/n
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
When RNA polymerases encounter damage, they can stall, triggering transcription-coupled repair (TCR) to remove the damage 3/n.
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@Mdnicholson3
Michael Nicholson
1 year
A huge amount of DNA damage happens to each cell every day (~100,000 DNA lesions). This damage can cause oncogenic mutations and disrupt gene expression 2/n.
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