Boris Novakovic

Dr Novakovic is a Senior Research Officer with over 10 years' experience in Molecular Biology and Epigenetics and 5 years' experience in innate immunity. He leads a 'Trained Immunity epigenetics' team within the Epigenetics Group of Professor Richard Saffery.

Dr Novakovic is a trained molecular biologist with a research interest in epigenetics of human immune cell function and disease. He is particularly interested in applying complementary epigenetic techniques to profile different aspects of chromatin structure and to integrate these data to explain biology.

Dr Novakovic is proficient in analysing DNA methylation data. This includes measuring DNA methylation on a global scale using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), on a genome-wide scale using array-based methodologies and on a locus-specific level using bisulfite-based approaches. During his Postdoc (2014 to 2018) in the functional genomics lab of Professor Henk Stunnenberg (Radboud University, Nijmegen), Dr Novakovic applied different epigenomic techniques to study innate immunity. He has generated over 900 sequencing libraries for genome-wide assessment of RNA expression (RNA-seq), histone modifications (ChIP-seq), open chromatin (ATAC-seq) and whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS). Dr Novakovic has made important contributions to the field of innate immunity, including the first characterization of the epigenetic basis for altered gene expression in endotoxin tolerance in humans (Novakovic et al. Cell 2016).

Dr Novakovic has published over 40 manuscripts, including in top journals Cell, Cell Metabolism, Cell Host Microbe, PNAS and Genome Research. He is currently CIA on an NHMRC New Investigator Grant (2019-2021) and CIC on an NHMRC Project Grant (2019-2021).