Associate Professor Pilar Blancafort

A/Prof Pilar Blancafort is an Associate Professor of Cancer Epigenetics at The University of Western Australia and a laboratory head at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research.

Pilar conducted her undergraduate studies at the University of Barcelona and she obtained her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Montreal, before performing post-doctoral studies at The Scripps Research Institute in California, USA.

In 2005, Pilar established her laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2012, she moved her lab to The University of Western Australia and in she joined the Perkins as Head of the Laboratory in Cancer Epigenetics in 2014.

Pilar is a specialist in genome engineering and gene targeting and her laboratory has pioneered the development of engineered DNA binding proteins to modulate the epigenetic state of cancer cells and delivery strategies for tumor targeting in pre-clinical studies.

Pilar holds a Cancer Council of Western Australia, Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and a Wesfarmers Fellowship.