Rate My Professor Arielle Sulit

Dr. Arielle Sulit is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Surgery and Critical Care at the University of Otago, Christchurch, within the Faculty of Medicine. She holds a BSc, an MSc, and a PhD in Genetics from Massey University, completed in 2022. Her doctoral research, supervised by Dr. Rachel Purcell, Dr. Olin Silander, and Dr. Sebastian Schmeier, investigated the roles of the microbiome and host immune responses in subtypes of colorectal cancer, as well as the effects of radiotherapy in rectal cancer. Prior to her current position, Sulit worked as an Assistant Research Fellow at the University of Otago. She possesses expertise in both bioinformatics and laboratory techniques, gained through her academic and research career.

Sulit's research centers on the contributions of the microbiome to colorectal cancer and their possible associations with human genetic expression in the disease. She supervises postgraduate projects, including investigations into epigenetic ageing in early-onset colorectal cancer using methylation profiles and Oxford Nanopore Technologies. In 2025, she was awarded the Roche Translational Cancer Research Fellowship, a $40,000 grant from Roche in partnership with the New Zealand Society for Oncology, to lead a multidisciplinary team spatially mapping microbial, immune, and gene expression features in colorectal cancer tumours to identify signatures associated with immunotherapy response or resistance. Key publications include 'Bacterial lipopolysaccharide alters DNA methylation in colorectal cancer cells' (Clinical Epigenetics, 2025, with J. Permain, T. Eglinton, and R. Purcell) and 'Consensus molecular subtypes and gene expression in early-onset colorectal cancer' (Colorectal Cancer, 2025, with O. Waddell, K. Wilson, R. Ramsey, A. Heriot, F. Frizelle, and R. Purcell). She has presented her work at conferences such as Queenstown Research Week and the GeneMappers Conference, including verbal presentations on tumour responses to chemoradiotherapy and microbial cell-free DNA.