Centre for Tumour Biology

Our centre's researchers work on different aspects of the biology of transformed cells or the stromal cells found in neoplastic foci. We bring together individuals with a diverse range of expertise in cell biology, molecular biology and pathology to form a synergistic approach to complex biological problems. Our unifying interest is in understanding the cellular and molecular events which drive tumour progression to the malignant phenotype. We have a particular interest in understanding the nature of the “cross-talk” between epithelial cancer cells and their stromal partners during cancer evolution. We bring together research scientists and clinicians to work on the research problems, with a focus always on the validation of ideas and observations in clinically-derived material, to ensure that bench-work is oriented toward understanding a “real” phenomenon.

Contact us

Centre Lead: Professor John Marshall

Deputy Centre Lead: Professor Richard Grose

Ground Floor, John Vane Science Centre,
Charterhouse Square,
London EC1M 6BQ

Recent Publications

  • Lipid Metabolism at the Nexus of Diet and Tumor Microenvironment. Trends in Cancer (2019).
  • The integrin αvβ6 drives pancreatic cancer through diverse mechanisms and represents an effective target for therapy. J Pathol (2019) (2) PMID: 31259422
  • DNA Origami Nanoarrays for Multivalent Investigations of Cancer Cell Spreading with Nanoscale Spatial Resolution and Single- Molecule Control. ACS Nano (2019) 13(1):728-736. PMID: 30588806
  • Pancreatic Cancer Organotypic Models. Curr Top Microbiol Immunol (2019). PMID: 30790075
  • A new pragmatic design for dose escalation in phase 1 clinical trials using an adaptive continual reassessment method. BMC Cancer (2019) 19(2) 632. PMID: 31242873
  • Drosophila Genetics: Analysis of Tissue Growth in Adult Tissues. Methods Mol Biol 2(2019) 1893(2) 43-51. PMID: 30565123
  • The 100 000 Genomes Project: bringing whole genome sequencing to the NHS. BMJ (2018). PMID: 29691228

Latest News

  • Elena Tomas-Bort, PhD student in Professor Richard Grose’s lab won the 3 minute thesis competition at the MRC DTP Away Day this month, where students were tasked with presenting their PhD project to a non-specialist audience in just 3 minutes using only a single slide. Elena’s presentation was titled ‘Targeting purinergic signalling in pancreatic cancer.'
  • Research led by Professor John Marshall has identified a protein that may represent a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Using this protein as a target, the team successfully created a CAR T cell therapy - a type of immunotherapy - that killed pancreatic cancer cells in a pre-clinical model. Find out more.
  • Each year, The Journal of Pathology awards the Jeremy Jass Prize for Research Excellence to the paper published in the previous calendar year that they believe to be of the highest scientific calibre. Congratulations to Professor Hemant Kocher, who is co-lead author of the paper selected for the Jeremy Jass Prize for the calendar year 2019. Find out more.

Areas of focus

Translational tumour biology
SEM image of a cancer cell migrating down through a pore in a membrane
Translational cancer metabolism
Multiclonal cancer cell line spheroid
Tumour-stroma interactions
QMUL lab image
Cell signalling
Inactive (left) and active (right) HER2-HER3 pairs - Credit: Phospho Biomedical Animation.
Breast cancer
Breast cancer cells. Credit: Anne Weston, Francis Crick Institute. CC BY-NC
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer cells. Credit: Anne Weston, Francis Crick Institute. CC BY-NC