Staff Directory
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 (Anthony) Anene
My current project aim is to develop novel molecular biomarkers for prostate cancer, a leading cause of male specific cancer death.
Dr Ann-Marie Baker
I am interested in understanding tumour evolution and stem cell biology within the human colon.
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 Opeoluwa Banwo
My research is focused on clinical informatics for the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank (PCRFTB).
Dr Findlay Redvers Bewicke-Copley
My work is currently focused on lymphoma, working on variant calling and gene expression analysis of NGS data.
Dr Katia Bouchekioua-Bouzaghou
My project aims to investigate how resistance mechanisms are acquired to a number of CDK4/6 inhibitors and to pinpoint new targets for therapy.
Dr David Britton
My project is focused on determining how certain proteins enable acute myeloid leukaemia blasts to acquire or have intrinsic resistance to chemotherapy, with the aim to identify suitable pharmaceutical alternatives to combat resistance.
Dr Juliana Candido
My research project aims to study the role of the immune cell infiltration in the tumour microenvironment of pancreatic cancer.
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 Suhnrita Chaudhuri
My research is focused on combining modulation of the tumour microenvironment with chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy in order to therapeutically target pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Dr Natasha Clayton
Investigating the intracellular signalling mechanisms underlying the development of resistance to therapeutic RTK inhibitors, particularly in FGFR-driven cancers.
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 William Charles Hemming Cross
I am currently working on several projects related to colorectal cancer and its premalignant stages, including sporadic adenomas and inflammatory bowel disease.
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 Kit Curtius
UKRI/Rutherford Research Fellow
The aims of my current research are to use mathematical mechanistic modelling to inform optimal cancer screening recommendations, to perform patient risk stratification, and to ultimately better prognostication.
Dr Gabriela d’Amico Lago
My work is focused on understanding the roles of kinase and non-kinase motifs of FAK in controlling physiological angiogenesis in vivo. Overall my goal is to understand how to best control tumour blood vessels in the regulation of cancer.
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 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 Marta Freitas
My work focuses on overcoming resistance to arginine deprivation therapy in mesothelioma.
Dr Daniel Friedman
My research is focused on investigating the crosstalk between immune cell subsets in the tumour microenvironment in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
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 Damien Goutte-Gattat
I am using fruit flies to investigate the role of tumour heterogeneity in the development of glioblastoma and the acquisition of resistance to chemotherapy.
Dr Miguel Hermida
My project studies the influence that the loss of the tumour suppressor protein LIMD1 has in renal and lung cancers by identifying selective drugs, targets and the cell signalling involved in order to improve the current therapy.
Dr Sara Farrah Heuss
My work focuses on c-Met signalling on endosomes in pancreatic cancer, and to evaluate how it can be exploited to benefit pancreatic cancer patients.
Dr James Heward
My research focuses on characterising epigenetic therapies for the “epigenetically addicted” germinal centre lymphomas.
Dr Quentin Heydt
My research focuses on the fundamental aspects of leukaemia initiating cell biology in adult acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
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 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 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 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 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 Giulia Marelli
I am investigating the use of virotherapeutic strategies for treating pancreatic cancer. Our research focuses on the use of modified oncolytic Vaccinia viruses armed with immune-modulatory genes such as cytokines to create a novel treatment for tumours.
Dr Lauren Maskell
My research is focused on the coating and modifying of a prostate selective oncolytic adenovirus to enable systemic delivery, eliminate metastases and induce tumour immunity.
Dr Alice Mazzagatti
Our work aims to better understand aneuploidy tolerance in cancer, in particular with regard to monosomy in AML.
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 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 Jose Munoz-Felix
My main project is to use a CRIPSR screen to identify novel vascular promotion/chemosensitisation targets. Additionally, I am investigating the utility of this approach in the treatment of other fibrotic diseases.
Dr Marie Nollet
The Receptor Tyrosine Kinase c-Met continues its signalling life cycle post-endocytosis. 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 .
Dr Jose Orgaz
My research focuses on cutaneous melanoma biology, a highly aggressive and metastatic cancer. I aim to get more insights into signalling pathways underlying melanoma progression and responses to current therapies. In particular, I am interested in the role of the actomyosin cytoskeleton in drug resistance.
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 Giuseppe Palladino
The goal of my research is to understand the mechanisms that determine the course of cancer evolution. My current focus is the investigation of the transcriptional and the epigenetic regulation arising during the evolution and progression of follicular lymphoma.
Dr Adam Passman
I am investigating the role of the microenvironment on gland phenotype in the evolution of Barrett’s oesophagus to dysplasia.
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 Stefano Pirro
My research focuses on enhancing the freely-available Breast Cancer Now Tissue Bank bioinformatics portal (BCNTBbp) and its analytical layer to build a ‘multi-omic’ integration system for BCNTB returned data.
Dr Deepak Raj
I work on developing preclinical models of chimeric antigen receptors for cell therapy of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
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 Irene Rodriguez-Hernandez
My research is focused on investigating the role of ROCK-Myosin II in tumour and metastasis initiation.
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 Michael Rushton
The aim of my research is to use the reprogramming of primed embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from the embryo inner cell mass (ICM) to ground state ESCs as a tool for elucidating the mechanisms involved in the regulation of DNA demethylation.
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 Jayeta Saxena
My research is focused on using a novel panel of chemo-resistant high grade serous ovarian cancer cells to discover new treatments that resensitise our cells to cis- and carboplatin.
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 Vera Silva
I am trying to understand how new drugs in combination with carboplatin can help bypass therapy resistance in ovarian cancer.
Dr Judith Simon
Our study aims to investigate the role of centrosome amplification on changing the tumour microenviroment using in vitro and in vivo models.
Dr Filomena Spada
My research involves using mass cytometry based analysis to characterise the interaction, activation, and signalling capacity of B and T-cells in CLL and other B-cell malignancies.
Dr Kirtiman Srivastava
My research is focused on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC), primarily the identification and quantification of PDAC biomarkers in patient urine samples and understanding the biology of cancerous transformation.
Dr Naoka Taylor
High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) represents the major subtype of ovarian cancer and displays high levels of chromosomal instability.
We are collaborating with the Balkwill and Lockley laboratories to investigate mechanisms driving chromosomal instability in gynaecological cancers.
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 Dayem Ullah
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 Marc Williams
I apply mathematical and computational approaches to understanding cancer evolution. A lot of my work is inspired by population genetics and evolutionary biology and I have been developing ways to adapt methods and theories from these fields to the study of cancer as an evolutionary system.
Dr Chrysi Xintaropoulou
The aim of my research is to elucidate the biology of leukaemia initiating cells, responsible for disease recurrence, in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
Dr Ruoyan Xu
My project focuses on understating mechanisms leading to aerobic glycolysis in cancer cells. In order to do this, I am implementing techniques and protocols to study mitochondrial and cellular metabolism, focusing in particular on methods based on mass spectrometry.
Dr Ming Yuan
My research focus is on cancer immunotherapy using oncolytic viruses (vaccinia virus) and engineered T cells.