Staff Directory
Dr Maryam Abdollahyan
My research is focused on Machine Learning with applications in Bioinformatics and Health Informatics, and Data Management of the Breast Cancer Now Tissue Bank (BCNTB).
Dr Michael Allen
My research focuses on understanding the progression of early breast cancer (ductal carcinoma in situ – DCIS) to invasive disease and the role of the microenvironment in this process.
Dr Chinedu A. Anene
Bioinformatician
I am a bioinformatician and am currently developing a computer vision pipeline to quantify and characterise tumour hypoxia in squamous cell carcinomas.
Dr Hannah Armes
The aim of my research project is to identify and functionally characterise candidate disease genes in familial leukaemia.
Dr Renato Brito Baleeiro
The primary focus of my research is to establish a platform for a neo-antigens-based vaccine for triple-negative breast cancer and pancreatic cancer.
Dr Findlay Redvers Bewicke-Copley
My work is currently focused on lymphoma, working on variant calling and gene expression analysis of NGS data.
Dr Natacha Bohin
My research focuses on employing multidisciplinary approaches to characterise RNA modifiers and explore their therapeutic potential to eradicate leukaemic stem cells, and to achieve haematopoietic stem cell expansion for therapy.
Dr Sam Burgess
My research is primarily focused on exploring how the bone marrow niche regulates haematopoietic stem cell development and leukaemia progression.
Dr Emanuela Carlotti
My project is focused on investigating the role of gland phenotype in the evolution of Barrett’s oesophagus to dysplasia.
Dr Edward Carter
My research is focused on understanding the early stages of breast cancer by using normal human breast cells obtained through the Breast Cancer Now tissue bank as building blocks to recreate a human breast duct in the laboratory environment.
Dr Pedro Casado-Izquierdo
My work is based on studying signalling networks in AML primary samples in order to predict responses to kinase inhibitors.
Dr Louisa Chard
Our research focuses on the use of modified, replicating oncolytic Vaccinia viruses and adenoviruses armed with immune-modulatory genes such as cytokines to create a self-propagating treatment for tumours that results in long-term immunological memory to the tumour cells.
Dr Eve Coulter
My research focuses on novel strategies to enrich, isolate and characterise a chemo-resistant population in patients with follicular lymphoma.
Dr Marta Crespi-Sallan
My research is focused on describing the mechanisms underlying Lamin B1 nuclear disassembly in B-cell normal development and how a dis-regulated Lamin B1 removal pathway could lead to several haematological malignancies within the germinal centre in secondary lymph organs.
Dr Eva Crosas-Molist
In 2015 I was awarded a research associate position funded by Cancer Research UK to join Dr Sanz-Moreno for my postdoc, where I develop my research studying the crosstalk between the cytoskeleton and mitochondria during tumour progression and invasion.
Dr Danilo Cucchi
My main research is focused on the identification of DNA damage signatures that predict response to immune checkpoint blockade. I am also interested in the role of metabolism in the biology of both cancer cells and immune cells.
Dr Silvana Debernardi
My work focuses on the global analysis of miRNA in pancreatic cancer and developing miRNA biomarkers for early detection of this malignancy.
Dr Vilma Dembitz
My research is focused on the role of lipid metabolism in resistance to therapy in acute myeloid leukemia.
Dr Maria Dermit
Using a multi-omics approach, my aim is to systematically reveal the relationship between RNA localisation and protein expression in mammalian cells, and assess how RNA localisation might be dysregulated in cancer cells in order to promote a more malignant phenotype.
Dr Jesus Gomez Escudero
I am involved in some projects that are focused in the stroma components of a tumour, particularly the endothelial vessels, and its potential role in some key processes including chemotherapy or metastasis.
Dr John Foster
My project focuses on understanding how the proteins involved in RNA binding and alternative splicing of pre-mRNA are regulated.
Dr Julie Foster
My areas of interest are imaging biochemical processes such as metabolism/proliferation (microPET), and the use of in vivo preclinical imaging in a range of applications.
Dr Emanuela Gadaleta
We are updating the bioinformatics data management system, expanding the analytical modules and functionalities, developing purpose-built graphical pug-ins and designing the bioinformatics infrastructure to allow the querying and analysis of data returned from projects using BCNTB tissues.
Dr Rathi Gangeswaran
My project is focused on the identification of molecular factors affecting adenoviral therapy.
Dr Ganga Gopinathan
My research project aims to investigate the inflammatory cytokine IL-6 as a major target in high grade serous carcinoma, with the hope of identifying targeted therapies for treatment.
Dr Michelle Goulart
My research is focused in understanding the tumour-stroma interactions in pancreatic cancer and the identification of potential biomarkers.
Dr Vittoria Graziani
My research looks at if/how invasive traits and metabolism of amoeboid versus mesenchymal cancer cells are altered in response to tissue mechanics, with the aim of developing anti-metastasis treatment(s).
Dr Paul Grevitt
My research projects involve identifying tumour suppressors involved in regulating the hypoxic response and metabolic stress, with the aim to identify novel targeted therapies against these.
Dr Giulia Guiducci
My research activity aims to characterise lncRNAs involved in the maintenance of genomic stability and to understand how their dysregulation can lead to cancer development.
Dr Maruan Hijazi-Vega
My work is focused on producing systematic classification of phosphorylation sites detectable by mass spectrometry that will provide new insights into the complexity and topology of kinase signalling.
Dr Joseph Hoare
My work focuses on investigating our novel panel of chemotherapy resistant cells to identify drugs that enhance the activity of oncolytic adenovirus in chemoresistant high grade serous cancer.
Dr Jacob Househam
I am a computational biologist focussing on understanding the evolutionary dynamics that underpin colorectal cancer progression.
Dr Anastasia Kapara
We are investigating the metabolic dependencies of cancer cells under biologically relevant conditions, such as nutrient stress, in a biomarker-specific manner. I use metabolomics, proteomics and other cutting-edge platforms to dissect the metabolic architecture of cancer models that harbour alterations in tumour suppressors that drive disease trajectory and treatment response.
Dr Kubra Karaosmanoglu Yoneten
Our research is focused on metabolic stresses accompanying activation of oncogenes. We are investigating cell responses to metabolic stresses in order to deeply understand these mechanisms and propose metabolic targets for cancer therapies.
Dr Roxana Kashani
My research involves the conjugation and radiolabelling of antibodies, small proteins and peptides with radioisotopes followed by HPLC/TLC validation and in vitro radioligand binding assays.
Dr Faraz Khan
Bioinformatician
I am a Bioinformatician working on the development of pipelines for NGS data analysis, including mutational calling, Single-Cell RNA-seq, ChIP peak calling and methylation, variant annotation and prioritisation, as well as multi-layer data integration strategy and tools.
Dr Panoraia Kotantaki
My research is focused on the tumour microenvironment of ovarian cancer with a particular focus on the extracellular matrix and how current and novel treatments influence this microenvironment.
Dr Florian Laforets
My research in Prof Balkwill’s group focuses on imaging tumour-associated macrophages and other immune cells in live ex vivo tumour slices, in order to assess their behaviour and the impact of immunotherapies on the live tumour microenvironment.
Dr Eszter Lakatos
I apply bioinformatic techniques and mathematical modelling to understand the evolutionary processes in colorectal cancer. My research focuses on the trade-offs a growing tumour population has to face for efficient growth and survival.
Dr Ana Levi
My focus is on investigating the epigenetic regulation of the PI3K pathway and identifying an effective combination therapy that will disable compensatory bypass routes, overcoming drug resistance.
Dr Peng Liu
I am interested in cancer prevention and immunotherapy using tumour-targeted replicating oncolytic viruses.
Dr Oscar Maiques
My research will focus on studying Myosin II function during melanoma progression and its cross-talk with inflammatory and immune responses.
Dr Beatrice Malacrida
My research focuses on designing 3D in vitro models to understand the contribution of the tumour microenvironment during HGSOC progression.
Dr Eleni Maniati
My research project aims to integrate multi-omic molecular and histological data datasets of the microenvironment of HGSOC metastases. This work will allow us to identify key microenvironmental components and pathways that sustain and promote tumours.
Dr Christopher Mapperley
My research is focused on investigating how the epitranscriptome regulates normal and malignant haematopoiesis.
Dr Shinelle G. Menezes
My work focuses on the influence of PKN2 on the immune-microenvironment, and the invasion and metastasis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in vivo, using murine models.
Dr Tizong Miao
My project aims to identify strategies to boost host anti-cancer immune response through enhanced oncolytic efficiency of oncolytic viruses by small molecules.
Dr Kate Moore
My research is focused on understanding how integrins help cancer cells invade and metastasise, as well as how we can use integrins as biomarkers of disease and therapeutic targets.
Dr Maximilian Mossner
My research is focussed on the disturbed epigenomic landscape within pancreatic tumours.
In particular, I investigate the bi-directional epigenetic reprogramming between the tumour microenvironment and pancreatic cancer stem cells that leads to cooperative tumour outgrowth.
Dr Alexandra Njegic
My research focuses on how we can therapeutically target integrins to modulate angiogenesis in heart failure.
Dr Marie Nollet
Our group has shown that internalised c-Met traffics through endomembranes positive for LC3B and Beclin1. Furthermore, c-Met sustains signalling from Autophagy Related Endomembranes, ARE. We hypothesised therefore that the AREs supporting c-Met trafficking and signalling belong to a novel non-canonical pathway.
Salpie Nowinski
My current research is focused on the clonal evolution of human colorectal cancers arising in inflammatory bowel disease using multi-omic data, with the aim of understanding fundamental underlying dynamics of tumour growth and progression.
Dr Jorge Oscanoa
I am developing SNPnexus, a software dedicated to improving our understanding of the functional role of genetic variations to prioritise clinically relevant ones facilitating the promise of precision medicine.
Dr Meryem Ozgencil
My project focuses on identifying phosphorylation regulated interactions of DNA Damage repair proteins, and investigating the functional role of these interactions for DNA damage repair and cancer development.
Dr Adam Passman
I am investigating the role of the microenvironment on gland phenotype in the evolution of Barrett’s oesophagus to dysplasia.
Dr Iuliia Pavlyk
My research focuses on exploring why ASS1 is differently expressed in human cancers and how this information may be transferred for anticancer therapy.
Dr Rita Pedrosa
My work will identify other players in the regulation of angiocrine signalling using a CRISPR screen. I will also explore the molecular mechanisms underlying how FAK controls angiocrine signalling.
Dr Celine Philippe
My project focuses on the translation reprogramming in acute myeloid leukaemia upon stresses such as chemotherapy.
Dr Ana Rio-Machin
My research project aims to identify germline mutations in families with leukaemia of unknown aetiology and study the intra and inter leukaemia heterogeneity observed in these families, through examination of clonal evolution and secondary genetic events.
Dr Helen Ross-Adams
The aim of my work is to develop clinically-relevant biomarkers that could aid in earlier disease detection, predict treatment response, and inform clinical management of patients.
Dr Remi Samain
My research is focused on understanding the role of contractility in pancreatic cancer.
Dr Emily Saunderson
I am interested in understanding whether epigenetics can play a driving role in the transition from normal to transformed cells in the breast.
Dr Aashika Sekar
Using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, I aim to dissect the role played by protein phosphatases in regulating the tissue growth controlling Hippo signalling pathway, which has commonly been implicated in cancer development, progression and metastasis.
Dr Kunal Shah
I am studying how the tumour suppressor gene LIMD1 functions in the microRNA pathway, a gene regulatory pathway that is often dysregulated in cancer.
Dr Nadeem Shaikh
We are using a variety of molecular and cytological techniques to study the mechanisms underlying chromosomal instability (CIN) in high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) that allow these highly adaptable tumours to become drug resistant.
Dr Alice Shia
My main research focus is investigating the changes in circulating nucleic acids in blood samples from patients recruited in clinical trials. We are interested in how we can use non-invasive techniques to detect changes in tumour DNA and correlate that to patient outcome.
Dr Elly Tyler
My research investigates a specific composition of extracellular matrix molecules which may explain the difference between responders and non-responders to immunotherapy.
Dr Dayem Ullah
UKRI/Rutherford Research Fellow
My role focuses on the design and implementation of a data management system for a pancreatic tissue bank hosted by the Institute.
My interest also lies in the development of various web-based computational analyses and data mining tools for biological research.
Dr Louie van de Lagemaat
I use computational biology techniques to understand how normal RNA regulatory mechanisms used in development are hijacked in cancers.
Dr Pengju Wang
My work focuses on cancer immunotherapy using oncolytic viruses (vaccinia virus and adenovirus) and engineered T cells. I will also be looking at the state of immune cells in the tumour microenvironment.
Dr Laura Wisniewski
My project looks at the modelling of cancer for improved therapy development. I am carrying out in vivo cancer experiments, with and without modifications of the tumour microenvironment, to examine effects of such treatments on anti-cancer therapy efficacy.
Dr Keith Woodley
My project looks at the metabolic mechanisms of drug resistance in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). We look to understand what makes certain cells more vulnerable to AML treatment and how we can use this to improve overall treatment strategies.