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 Emily Abraham
My research is focused on studying changes in metabolism and metabolic stresses that are caused by oncogene activation and how these stresses lead to tumour suppressive responses.
Dr Alessandro Agnarelli
My research focuses on investigating the roles of DNA Polymerase Epsilon (Pol ε) in nucleosome assembly. Using a range of biochemical and biophysical techniques (including LC-MS, Cryo-EM), my aim is to elucidate the structural analysis of the interaction between DNA Pol ε and parental histones H3-H4 at replication fork.
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 Hannah Armes
The aim of my research project is to identify and functionally characterise candidate disease genes in familial leukaemia.
Dr Emma Bailey
I am providing bioinformatics support for several projects focusing on squamous cell carcinoma. This generally involves developing bioinformatics pipelines for large-scale cancer datasets and utilising computational approaches for analysis, with the overall aim being to uncover novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers.
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 James Boncan
My research investigates the functional relevance of RNA-binding proteins (RBPS) in normal haematopoiesis and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) pathogenesis.
Dr Marta Buzzetti
My research focuses on the use of patient-derived organoid co-cultures and genome wide CRISPR screens to unravel tumour intrinsic gene networks controlling resistance to CD3 bispecific antibodies in colorectal cancer, and possibly applicable to other tumour types.
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 Lourdes Chulia-Peris
My research focuses on studying the bidirectional crosstalk between normal fibroblast (NF), CAFs, matrix organisation and the acquisition of tumour amoeboid cell state in co-culture systems.
Dr Alina Chakraborty
My research focuses on understanding the role of RNA localisation in breast cancer progression. In particular, I am looking at how and why the cellular localization of some small nuclear RNAs (snoRNA) are altered during disease progression.
Dr Alice Coomer
My research aims to understand the mechanisms through which long noncoding RNAs can control genome stability in cancer.
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 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 Fankhaenel
My research focuses on understanding how centrosome amplification impacts tumour angiogenesis and how this can be targeted to develop new cancer therapies.
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 Julia Frankenberg Garcia
My research project is focused on understanding the impact of centrosome amplification in cancer, in particular the role of extra centrosomes in tumour evolution.
Dr Guillem Fuertes Marin
My research is focused on studying the molecular mechanisms of integrin αvβ6-driven pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) progression and metastasis.
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 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 Joash Joy
My research focuses on building human tumour models within microfluidic chips that recapitulate features of the tumour microenvironment, such as blood vessels.
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 Katarina Kluckova
We are interested in metabolic dependencies of B-cell lymphomas, in particular the serine synthesis pathway and one carbon metabolism.
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 Paramita Kundu
My project aims to explore the contribution of nuclear-cytoplasmic distribution and traffic of transcription factors that aid the aggressiveness of melanoma, and explore possible epigenetic aspects of melanoma initiation and progression.
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 Rachel Lawrence
My research focuses on measuring circulating tumour cells as a blood-based biomarker for aggressive prostate cancer.
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 Meng-Lay Lin
My research interest focuses on risk stratification signatures for Barrett’s oesophagus progression to cancer using high throughput multiplexed imaging, bioinformatics, shallow whole genome sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics.
Dr Peng Liu
I am interested in cancer prevention and immunotherapy using tumour-targeted replicating oncolytic viruses.
Dr Audrey Lumeau
My research focuses on understanding the relationship between chromosome instability mechanisms and tumour cells’ resistance to therapies.
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 Juan Manuel Marti
My current project dissects the role that the protein FAK plays on the induction of senescence observed in endothelial cells (ECs) after DNA damage therapy, and its role in lung cancer metastasis.
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 Nathaniel Mon Père
I investigate mathematical properties of somatic evolution in the context of both cancerous and healthy tissue.
Dr Alexandra Njegic
My research focuses on how we can therapeutically target integrins to modulate angiogenesis in heart failure.
Dr Sam Ogden
We are using single cell multi-omic approaches to study how cancer cell plasticity and the tumour microenvironment contribute to metastasis in colorectal cancer.
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 Ankit Patel
My main research focuses on examining the immune landscape and identifying specific immune determinants that can predict the progression from actinic keratosis, a pre-malignant lesion, to cutaneous SCC. I am analysing single cell RNA-seq data and utilizing machine learning algorithms to evaluate potential diagnostic and prognostic markers that could aid in the identification of high-risk SCC patients. The identification of these markers is critical for early detection and intervention, which can significantly improve patient outcomes.
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 Charlott Repschläger
My research focuses on the perturbation of EMT-like pathways in follicular lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and how this promotes cancer propagation, transformation into a more aggressive form of disease and resistance to therapy.
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 Raul Sanchez Lanzas
Our research is focused in defining the cellular interactome of haematopoietic stem cells and leukaemic stem cells inside their niches during adulthood, ageing and disease. We are also interested in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive clonal selection and evolution in clonal haematopoiesis.
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 Graeme Thorn
My research focuses on the bioinformatic analyses of DNA methylation of circulating tumour DNA and the use of DNA methylation as a biomarker for breast cancer prognosis.
Dr Irina Titkova
My research focuses on exploiting cell cycle vulnerabilities and signalling rewiring in tumour cells, to find new approaches to treat cancer.
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 Sam Wallis
My research uses microscopy to examine how microtubule post-translational modifications affect DNA damage repair and how this could be exploited to enhance chemotherapy.
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.
Dr Zuoyi Zhao
My research is focused on cancer immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer, particularly immune-stimulatory molecules, armed oncolytic viruses and CAR T-cells.