Dr. Nitika Taneja, PhD is an Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at the Department of Molecular Genetics, Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC) and also affiliated with Technical University, Delft (TU, Delft) since 2018. She is an Oncode Investigator and consequently her group became part of Oncode Institute since 2024. The central theme of her research activities has been focused on understanding complex molecular mechanisms of chromatin remodeling upon DNA replication and replication stress in maintaining genome stability.

She obtained her PhD from the University of Zurich (2013), where she studied transgenerational inheritance of histone variants in Drosophila. As a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute, NIH (2017), she investigated heterochromatin inheritance during DNA replication in fission yeast.

In her own lab, she employs mammalian systems, including human and mouse cell lines, tumor organoids, and patient-derived material (ovarian and prostate cancer samples such as ascites, circulating tumor cells, and biopsy-derived cells), to study chromatin organization at replication forks, particularly in the context of chemotherapy-induced replication stress. Her work addresses a major knowledge gap in understanding how three-dimensional chromatin architecture mediates replication fork stability under stress. By uncovering these connections and identifying the key molecular factors involved, her research opens new avenues in the fields of cancer and disease. To this end, her group develops state-of-the-art single-molecule and 3D genomics tools to overcome the limitations of conventional methods, enabling investigation of transient chromatin changes both locally at replication forks and at the genome-wide level to capture spatial reorganization of chromatin under replication stress.

She has been recognized with several prestigious grants and awards, including the Young Investigator Award from the Daniel den Hoed Stichting Foundation, Erasmus+ Fellowship, Convergence Open Mind Call, NWO-Vidi Talent Award, Aspasia Premium Grant, NWO Recognition Award and Incentive Grant for Women in STEM, and a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant. She was also selected through a nationwide competitive process as a Junior Oncode Investigator, supported by the Oncode Institute.

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                                                                                              LATEST LAB NEWS:

• We secured Oncode Technology Development Funding to develop a clinical-grade ChromStretch Assay for predicting therapy response in tumor cells -December 2024

• Our lab received an EU-HORIZON Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship for a new postdoc! - February 2025