Dr. Ohm investigates abnormal epigenetic silencing events in the initiation of human cancers, particularly the role that stem cell pluripotency genes and stem cell signaling pathways play during the formation of a tumor initiating cell. She has shown that unique chromatin patterns found in stem cells may render a tumor suppressor gene particularly vulnerable to silencing by DNA hypermethylation in cancer. She has also shown that the process of induced reprogramming of somatic cells to an embryonic fate results in the induction of an extensive program of silencing via DNA hypermethylation. This research has implications for the use of epigenetic modifying drugs as adjuvant cancer therapy and for the regenerative medicine field, as reprogrammed somatic cells are employed for a variety of regenerative medicine purposes
