Dr Monk is Professor of Developmental Epigenetics at the University of East Anglia and is the Cells & Tissues Theme Leader in the School of Biological Sciences. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College London in 2001 before completing several post-doc positions. In 2006 he moved to the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL) in Barcelona where he was awarded a prestigious Ramon Y Cajal career developmental fellowship. After 10 successful years at IDIBELL he relocated to UEA. His research team endeavours to understand the epigenetic mechanisms relevant to human diseases, focusing on the application of high-throughput genome technologies to analyse the interplay between genetic variations and DNA methylation. For many years his team has addressed the role of aberrant epigenetic regulation in imprinting disorders, as well as in common morbidities, including fetal growth and cancer. Current projects encompass developing novel low-input/single-cell techniques to understand epigenetic mosaicism, utilizing genome-editing technologies for site-specific epigenetic manipulation and understand role of embryonic DNA methylation and transcriptome dynamics on shaping adult phenotypic traits.