Assistant Professor
Email:
smarhon@uoguelph.ca
Office:
Reynolds 3304
Website links:
Sajid Marhon
I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Guelph. I have a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Guelph. My research focuses on developing algorithms and computational pipelines that integrate bioinformatics, machine learning, and multi-omics data to better understand epigenetics, transposable elements, and double-stranded RNA in cancer. In addition to research, I am passionate about teaching and have taught computer science courses.
My research interests lie at the intersection of computer science, bioinformatics, and precision medicine, with a focus on developing advanced algorithms and computational methods to decode complex biological data. I am particularly interested in using machine learning, spectral analysis, and integrative multi-omics approaches, spanning genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics, to uncover the regulatory networks and immune interactions that drive cancer progression and therapy response. A central theme of my work is modeling the role of transposable elements and double-stranded RNA in gene regulation, immune evasion, and treatment outcomes, with the ultimate goal of identifying biomarkers and designing predictive models that enable personalized cancer therapies.
Šulc, P., Gioacchino, A.D., Solovyov, A., Sun, S., Martis, S., Marhon, S.A., Lindholm, H.T., Chen, R., Hosseini, A., Jiang,, H., Ly,, B., Taylor, M., Mehdipour, P., Abdel-Wahab, O., Rusk, N., Vabret, N., LaCava, J., De Carvalho, D.D., Monasson, R., Cocco, S., Greenbaum, B.D. (2025). Repeats Mimic Pathogen-Associated Patterns Across a Vast Evolutionary Landscape. Cell Genomics. In Press.
Ishak, C.A, Marhon, S.A, et al. (2025) Chronic viral mimicry induction following p53 loss promotes immune evasion. 15(4), 793-817. Cancer Discovery.
Feng, S., Marhon, S.A., et al. (2024) Inhibiting EZH2 Targets Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumor by Triggering Viral Mimicry via Both RNA and DNA Sensing Pathways. 15(1), Nature Communications.
Sun, S., You, E., Hong, J., Hoyos, D., Del Priore, I., Tsanov, K. M., Mattagajasingh, O., Di Gioacchino, A., Marhon, S. A., Chacon-Barahona, J., Li, H., Jiang, H., Hozeifi, S., Rosas-Bringas, O., Xu, K. H., Song, Y., Lang, E. R., Rojas, A. S., et al., (2024). Cancer cells restrict immunogenicity of retrotransposon expression via distinct mechanisms. 57(12), Immunity.
Hosseini, A., Lindholm, H. T., Chen, R., Mehdipour, P., Marhon, S. A., Ishak, C. A., Moore, P. C., Classon, M., Di Gioacchino, A., Greenbaum, B., De Carvalho, D. D. (2024) Retroelement decay by the exonuclease XRN1 is a viral mimicry dependency in cancer. Cell Reports. 43(2):113684.
de Castro, F. A., Mehdipour, P., Chakravarthy, A., Ettayebi, I., Yau, H. L., Medina, T. S., Marhon, S. A., de Almeida, F. C., Bianco, T. M., Arruda, A. G. F, Devlin, R., de Figueiredo‐Pontes, L. L., Chahud, F., Cacemiro, M. D. C, Minden, M. D., Gupta, V., De Carvalho, D. D. (2024) Ratio of stemness to interferon signalling as a biomarker and therapeutic target of myeloproliferative neoplasm progression to acute myeloid leukaemia. British Journal of Haematology. 204(1), 206-220.
Nikolic, N., Maule, F ,Bobyn, Ellestad, K., Paik, S., Marhon, S. A., Mehdipour, P., Lun, X., Chen, H., Mallard, C., Hay, A. J., Johnston, M. J, Gafuik, C. J, Zemp, F .J, Shen, Y., Ninkovic, N., Osz, K., Labit, E., Berger, N. D., Brownsey, D. K., Kelly, J. J, Biernaskie, J., Dirks, P. B., Derksen, D. J, Jones, S. J. M., Senger, D. L., Chan, J. A., Mahoney, D. J., De Carvalho, D. D., Gallo, m.. (2023). macroH2A2 antagonizes epigenetic programs of stemness in glioblastoma. Nature Communications. 14(1):3062.
Chahi, A. K., Belew, M.S., Xu, J., Chen, H.T.T, Rentas, S., Voisin, V., Krivdova, G., Lechman, E., Marhon, S.A., De Carvalho, D.D., Dick, J.E., Bader, G.D., Hope, K.J. (2022) PLAG1 dampens protein synthesis to promote human hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal. Blood, 140(9). 992-1008.
Krivdova, G., Voisin, V., Schoof, E.M., Marhon, S.A., Murison, A., McLeod, J.L., Gabra, M.M., Zeng, A.G., Aigner, S., Yee, B.A., Shishkin, A.A., Nostrand, E.L.V., Hermans, K.G., Trotman-Grant, A.C., Mbong, N., Kennedy, J.A., Gan, O.I., Wagenblast, E., De Carvalho, D.D., Salmena, L., Minden, M.D., Bader, G.D., Yeo, G.W., Dick, J.E., Lechman, E.R.. (2022) Identification of the global miR-130a targetome reveals a role for TBL1XR1 in hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal and t(8;21) AML. Cell Reports. 38(10):110481.
Zheng, Q. Chen, T. Zhoub, W., Marhon, S.A. Xie, L., Su, H.(2021) SAVMD: An adaptive signal processing method for identifying protein coding regions. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 70:102998.
Wagenblast E., Araújo, J., Gan, O.I., Cutting, S.K., Murison, A., Krivdova, G., Azkanaz, M., McLeod, J.L, Smith, S.A., Marhon, S.A., Gabra, M., Chan-Seng-Yue, M., Garcia-Prat, L., Salmena, L., De Carvalho, D.D., Chong, K., Roifman, M., Shannon, P., Wang, J.C.Y., Hitzler, J.K., Chitayat, D., Dick, J.E. & Lechman, E.R. A. (2020) Mapping the Cellular Origin and Early Evolution of Leukemia in Down Syndrome. Science 373(6551): eabf6202.
Mehdipour, P., Marhon, S.A., Ettayebi, I., et al. (2020) Epigenetic therapy induces transcription of inverted SINEs and ADAR1 dependency. Nature. 588(7836), 169-173. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2844-1.
Kim, Y.H., Marhon, S.A., Zhang, Y., Steger, D.J., Won, K.J, and Lazar, M.A. (2018) Rev-erbα Dynamically Modulates Chromatin Looping to Control Circadian Gene Transcription. Science. 359(6381), 1274-1277.
Marhon, S.A., Kremer, S.C. (2016) Prediction of protein coding regions using a wide-range wavelet window. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. 3(4), 742-53.