Research Profile

Portrait of Dr. Lamina Serano

Dr. Lamina Serano

Postdoctoral Researcher in Epigenetics & Bioethics

Short Bio

I am a PhD candidate at BIGoA in close collaboration with the Inst. of Bioethics and Human Evolution and lecture on epigenetic governance. My current work focuses on chromatin remodelling–with a focus on ATP-dependent remodelling that facilitates DNA repair, histone modification (acetylation and methylation of specific lysine residues), and DNA methylation. In 2016, I began work as a student assistant for poly-enzyme research at BIGoA, EnzLab, which heavily influenced my research direction towards the functional unit of polyenzymes. I completed my BSc in Biochemistry at the University of Necota, where I was supervised by the respectful Prof. Hazz Gas. For my masters degree–which I started in 2020–, I moved southwards to the newly opened Biomolecular Institute of the Gulf of America (BIGoA). This is where I discovered my passion for chromatin remodelling, which was the topic of my final thesis titled “Mechanisms of Action and Structure During Male Gametophyte Development“. This work was supported by the ERCN Elevation Grant (grant number GA128621). More recently–in 2023–I commenced my PhD at BIGoA on epigenetic and genetic regulatory mechanisms (preliminary dissertation title: „AI-powered Epigenetics for Cancer Research on Plants“), funded by TArGET HIIF Grant. This fits the sustainable development goals of IIID in the health domain. Pronouns: they/their.

Research Interests

  • environmental epigenetics
  • transgenerational plasticity
  • epigenomic data governance
  • ethical frameworks for omics

Short CV

  • 2021–present: Postdoctoral Researcher, Inst. of Bioethics and Human Evolution
  • 2020–2021: Biomolecular Institute of the Gulf of America (BIGoA)
  • 2016–2020: Research Assistent, EnzLab

Affiliations

  • Inst. of Bioethics and Human Evolution
  • Centre for Population Adaptation

Education

  • PhD, Epigenetics and Society, Biomolecular Institute of the Gulf of America (BIGoA), 2026
  • MSc, Biochemistry, Biomolecular Institute of the Gulf of America (BIGoA), 2022
  • BA, Biology and Chemistry, University of Necota, 2018

Teaching

  • Epigenetics, Environment, and Ethics
  • Responsible Omics: Consent and Governance
  • Human Evolutionary Epigenetics

Awards

  • Emerging Scholar Prize, Consortium for Life Science Ethics , 2023
  • Best Early Career Paper, Journal of Human Epigenetic Variation , 2021

Publications

  • Serano, L., AI-powered Epigenetics for Cancer Research on Plants, Policy & Life Sciences Quarterly , 2024.
  • Serano, L.; Idris, K., Contextual consent for population epigenomics, Ethics in Omics Review , 2023.
  • Serano, L., Seasonal stress and methylation drift in coastal adolescents, Journal of Human Epigenetic Variation , 2022.
  • Serano, L.; Donkor, P.; Varela, M., Bias in methylation-based age estimators across ancestries, Computational Epigenetics Reports , 2021.

Abstract

Plants use different types of stress memories for gene regulation from early development to maturity. However, there are a multitude of crops (e.g., soybean, cotton or squash) that are highly sensitive to heat stress, making them vulnerable to what we term catastrophic epigenetic forgetting—a loss of acquired stress resilience. Early studies have shown that genetically modified crops–in particular those that have been treated with non-Bt (Cry1Ab)–have a tendency to lose their ability to absorb water after immense soil dryness. These studies suggested that such modifications impair water uptake under prolonged drought. To test whether gene silencing is the sole cause, we conducted genome-wide transcriptional profiling via microarray on genetically modified and wild-type cultivars exposed to controlled heat and soil-drying conditions. Our results show that while gene silencing plays a role, significant downregulation of heat shock factors (HSFs), ABA-dependent signaling pathways, and histone methylation marks also correlate with the loss of stress memory. These findings–to the best of our knowledge, the first of their kind–may also have profound impact on cancer research, because it allows targeted activation of tumor suppressor genes.