Rate My Professor Annika Seddon

Dr. Annika Seddon is a Research Fellow in the Department of Pathology and Biomedical Science at the University of Otago, Christchurch, working with the Centre for Redox Biology and Medicine. She completed her Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences with Honours at the University of Otago in 2013, where her research examined immune suppression and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma under the Mackenzie Cancer Research Group. She then pursued a PhD at the University of Otago Christchurch with the Centre for Free Radical Research, supervised by Professors Mark Hampton, Tony Kettle, and Dr. Margaret Currie. Her doctoral work investigated neutrophil death mechanisms in the tumour microenvironment, distinguishing explosive pro-inflammatory death from contained anti-inflammatory forms, with implications for chronic inflammation and cancer therapy targets using patient samples.

Seddon's research specializes in the intersection of inflammation, ageing, cancer, and epigenetics. She investigates how oxidants from immune cells and mitochondria, such as hydrogen peroxide and glycine chloramine, inactivate DNA methyltransferase enzymes, depleting S-adenosyl methionine and causing site-specific DNA methylation changes linked to cancer pathways like proliferation, differentiation, autophagy, and apoptosis. Her Cancer Society New Zealand-funded three-year $300,000 postdoctoral fellowship examines mitochondrial dysfunction's role in epigenetic alterations and differentiation of haematopoietic stem cells, particularly in acute myeloid leukaemia, testing mitochondria-targeted therapies to enhance treatment responses. Additional projects include the Canterbury Health, Ageing and Life Course study, identifying early immune and metabolic markers of age-related decline, funded by the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, and the effects of bacterial lipopolysaccharides from colorectal cancer patient guts on immune cell oxidants and epigenetic regulation. Key publications include Das et al., 'Regulation of the epigenetic landscape by immune cell oxidants' (Free Radic. Biol. Med., 2021); Seddon et al., 'Oxidant inactivation of DNA methyltransferase in T-lymphoma cells' (Epigenetics Chromatin, 2021); Seddon et al., 'Widespread genomic de novo DNA methylation occurs following oxidant exposure' (Hum. Mol. Genet., 2022); Damiano et al., 'Chronic inflammation to cancer: The impact of oxidative stress on DNA methylation' (Front. Biosci. Landmark, 2025); and Seddon et al., 'Inflammation and DNA methylation in Alzheimer’s disease: Mechanisms of epigenetic remodelling by immune cell oxidants in the ageing brain' (Redox Report, 2024). Her contributions aim to uncover novel therapeutic targets for cancer and age-related disorders.