Professor Sudha Rao obtained her BSC (Hons.) degree at Keele University, UK. She subsequently joined Aventis and as a Senior Scientist was involved in developing therapeutics strategies in the arena of asthma & COPD. Sudha received a prestigious Sanofi Aventis Fellowship and obtained her PhD from the University of London, Kings College in 2000. During this period, she joined a team of scientists at Aventis Pharma to establish the first therapeutic microarray screening platform in the UK in collaboration with Affymetrix, USA. Sudha was recruited by Professor Shannon (Gene Expression and Epigenomics Group) as a postdoctoral fellow to JCSMR, ANU in 2000. In 2003 she was appointed as a research fellow (Level B) and in 2009, Sudha was appointed Team Leader of the Immune Regulation & Nuclear Dynamics Group at JCSMR, ANU. Sudha moved to the University of Canberra in 2010 as an Associate Professor and subsequently promoted to Professor in Molecular & Cellular Biology in 2015. Sudha currently heads the Epigenetic and Transcription laboratory within HRI and is funded by NHMRC, ARC and commercial grants. Sudha’s recent translational work has led to the establishment of EpiAxis Therapeutics, for which she is Director/Co-Founder and CSO. Sudha has extensive experience in transcriptional biology and genomic technologies that spans both pharmaceutical and academic settings. The primary focus of Sudha's research group has been to unravel complex epigenetic-signatures in transcription programs in the context of the immune system, as well as to understand the deregulatory mechanisms operating in cancer settings.