Rate My Professor Petra Hajkova

Professor Petra Hajkova is Professor of Developmental Epigenetics in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. She serves as Deputy Director and Head of the Reprogramming and Chromatin Research Group at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), where she is also an MRC Investigator. Hajkova completed her undergraduate studies at Charles University in Prague and earned her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. She conducted postdoctoral research in Azim Surani’s laboratory at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, focusing on epigenetic reprogramming processes in vivo. In 2009, she joined the MRC LMS as an MRC Career Development Award holder, advancing to MRC Programme Leader Track (2011-2015) and MRC Programme Leader (tenured from 2015). She headed the LMS Epigenetics Section from 2018 to 2021, served as Interim Director from 2021 to 2022, and holds membership in the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) since 2018 and Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) since 2022.

Hajkova's research investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying the maintenance and erasure of epigenetic information, with a focus on epigenetic reprogramming during mammalian germline development and the zygote stage. Her group employs genetic and biochemical approaches in mouse models to study DNA methylation dynamics, hydroxymethylation propagation, chromatin assembly and disassembly, histone replacement, and the impact of environmental factors on these processes. Key areas include gene-environment interactions, cell identity across the life course, and implications for infertility, oocyte quality decline with age, regeneration barriers, and metabolism-epigenetic crosstalk. Seminal publications include 'Chromatin dynamics during epigenetic reprogramming in the mouse germ line' (Nature, 2008), 'Genome-wide reprogramming in the mouse germ line entails the base excision repair pathway' (Science, 2010), 'Epigenetic reprogramming enables the transition from primordial germ cell to gonocyte' (Nature, 2018), 'Sex-specific chromatin remodelling safeguards transcription in germ cells' (Nature, 2021), and 'Quantifying propagation of DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation with iDEMS' (Nature Cell Biology, 2023). Her contributions have earned awards such as the Cheryll Tickle Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology (2024) and the Mary Lyon Medal from the Genetics Society (2017).