The overarching goal of my research is to decipher how the disruption of the cellular epigenetic balance contributes to human disease. My expertise lies in dissecting the mechanisms of gene expression programs through chromatin regulation, in particular via histone variants and histone modifications. My Ph.D. training involved dissecting the mechanisms of gene expression regulation in Retroviruses. As a postdoctoral fellow and an Instructor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at ISMMS (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), New York, I aspired to characterize chromatin changes occurring during cancer development and progression, in particular malignant melanoma - a deadly disease that currently lacks a cure. My studies include understanding the role of histone variants and chaperones in melanoma pathogenesis and identifying new epigenetic drivers of melanoma progression, with a focus on those that can be inhibited by small molecules, and can thus serve as novel therapeutic targets.

Fontanals-Cirera B,Hasson D, Vardabasso C,Di Micco R, Gantz M, De Pablos A, Morgenstern A,Pamela Wu P, Valle-GarciaD, Darvishian F,Roe J, Davies MA, Vakoc CR, Hernando E and Bernstein E.Harnessing BET inhibitor sensitivity reveals AMIGO2 as amelanoma survival gene. Molecular Cell 2017,68(4):731-744.

Vardabasso C, Gaspar-Maia A, Pünzeler S,Valle-Garcia D, Hasson D, Straub T, Keilhauer EC,Strub T, Dong J, Panda T, Segura M, ChungCY, Yao JL, Singh R, Verma A, Mann M, HernandoE, Hake SB, Bernstein E. Histone variant H2A.Z.2 regulatesproliferation and drug sensitivity of malignant melanoma. Molecular Cell 2015, 59(1):75-88.

Vardabasso C, Hasson D,Chung J, Duarte LF, Ratnakumar K, Bernstein E. Histone variants: linkingchromatin structure to cancer. Review. Cellularand Molecular Life Sciences 2014, May 8.

Kapoor A, Goldberg MS, Cumberland LK, Ratnakumar K, Segura MF, EmanuelPO, Menendez S, Vardabasso C, LeRoyG, Vidal CI, Polsky D, Osman I, Garcia BA, Hernando E, Bernstein E. The histonevariant macroH2A suppresses melanoma progression through regulation of CDK8. Nature 2010, 468: 1105-1109.

Vardabasso C,Manganaro L, Lusic M, Marcello A, Giacca M. The histone chaperone proteinNucleosome Assembly Protein-1 binds HIV-1 Tat and promotes viral transcription.Retrovirology 2008, 5:8.