Dr Rasika Samarasinghe is group leader of the Translational Epigenetic Research and Therapeutics lab and senior lecturer in the School of Medicine at Deakin University. Rasika completed her PhD in Medicine at Deakin University and joined Prof. David Ashley's group as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Andrew Love Cancer Centre, University Hospital Geelong. She investigated epigenetic mechanisms regulated in childhood brain cancers such as Glioblastoma and DIPG and identified novel biomarkers and therapies. Her work contributed to a Phase II clinical trial on aggressive childhood brain cancers, which used a new combination of chemo and epigenetic drugs as an alternative therapy option. In 2018, Rasika joined the School of Medicine at Deakin University as an academic and established an independent research team in the Institute for Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Translation (IMPACT).

Her group investigates how the epigenome regulates mechanisms in diseases such as childhood and adult cancers, mental health and degenerative disorders. Using an integration of omic based technologies together with 3D cell models, stem cells and organoids, her lab aims to understand these epigenetic changes in diseases, with a view of identifying novel targets for diagnosis and therapeutics.