Research

I have set up a research team devoted to cancer genetic studies and biomarker development, in particular in male urological cancers. The mission of the research team is to reduce motility and morbidity of cancer patients by understanding cancer development and progression mechanisms and facilitating precision medicine through the development of efficient cancer detection, prognostic and treatment response prediction/monitoring biomarkers.

Our past work have been mainly focused on identification of genetic alterations and genetic mechanisms in cancer development, progression and therapeutic response. Recently, our research work moved into circulation biomarker development, including CTCs, exosome and other cells, for cancer diagnosis, prognosis and prediction/monitoring of cancer progression and therapeutic response.

There are currently two main research areas of interest:

• Biomarker discovery and clinical applications, focusing on circulating biomarkers (CTCs, exosomes and other cancer associated circulating cells) for cancer diagnosis, prognosis and prediction/monitoring of cancer progression and therapeutic response.
• Mechanisms of prostate cancer metastasis and therapeutic resistance.

Other Activities

• Senior Editor: American Journal of Cancer Research
• Editorial Board Member: The Open Breast Cancer Journal
• Editorial Board Member: Journal of Cancer Research Updates
• Scientific assessment committee member: France national cancer research programme Canceropole (2007-2014)
• Research grant reviewer for funding bodies, such as British Medical Research Council (MRC), British National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), UK Prostate Action, Prostate Cancer Research Charity, National Cancer Institute of France, International Association of Cancer Research, Hong Kong Research Grants Council
• Referee of scientific journals such as Oncogene, J Path, Gene Chromosome Cancer, Br J Cancer, International J Cancer, Carcinogenesis, PloS One, BMC Cancer, Histopathology, Clinical Cancer Research and America Journal of Pathology
• Member of prostate cancer ICGC consortium
  Member of PRACTICAL prostate cancer predisposition study international consortium
• Active Member of American Association for Cancer Research
• Honorable Professor, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China
• Honorable Professor, Naning Medical University, China
• Visiting Professor, Zhengzhou University Medical College, China

Major Funding

• 2019-2020- CRUK Cancer Early Detection Primer award, 'Exploring platelet miRNA as a novel cost-effective non-invasive liquid biopsy approach to improve prostate cancer diagnosis,' £97,242
• 2017-2020- Angle Europe PLC, "The prognostic value of circulating megakaryocytes for cancer patients" £278,000
• 2015-2020- The Orchid Cancer Appeal, "Circulating tumour cell study and biomarker identification in prostate cancer" £620,000
• 2014-2018- Medical Research Council, Associated genes in prostate cancer, £303,225
  
  

Recent Publications

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes Campbell PJ, Getz G, Korbel JO et al. Nature (2020) 578(7) 82-93

Reply by Authors Xu L, Mao X, Grey A et al. The Journal of urology (2020) 203(7) 81-82

Erratum to: Genome-wide association study identifies susceptibility loci for B-cell childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Nature Communications, (2018), 9, 1, (1340), 10.1038/s41467-018-03178-z) Vijayakrishnan J, Studd J, Broderick P et al. Nature Communications (2019) 10(7)

Erratum to: Genome-wide association study of classical Hodgkin lymphoma identifies key regulators of disease susceptibility (Nature Communications, (2017), 8, 1, (1892), 10.1038/s41467-017-00320-1) Sud A, Thomsen H, Law PJ et al. Nature Communications (2019) 10(7)

Erratum to: Germline variation at 8q24 and prostate cancer risk in men of European ancestry (Nature Communications, (2018), 9, 1, (4616), 10.1038/s41467-018-06863-1) Matejcic M, Saunders EJ, Dadaev T et al. Nature Communications (2019) 10(7)

Erratum to: Identification of multiple risk loci and regulatory mechanisms influencing susceptibility to multiple myeloma (Nature Communications, (2018), 9, 1, (3707), 10.1038/s41467-018-04989-w) Went M, Sud A, Försti A et al. Nature Communications (2019) 10(7)

Erratum to: Large-scale transcriptome-wide association study identifies new prostate cancer risk regions (Nature Communications, (2018), 9, 1, (4079), 10.1038/s41467-018-06302-1) Mancuso N, Gayther S, Gusev A et al. Nature Communications (2019) 10(7)

Bladder cancer, a unique model to understand cancer immunity and develop immunotherapy approaches Song D, Powles T, Shi L et al. Journal of Pathology (2019) 249(7) 151-165

Noninvasive Detection of Clinically Significant Prostate Cancer Using Circulating Tumor Cells. Xu L, Mao X, Grey A et al. The Journal of Urology 203(1) 101097JU000000000000-101097JU000000000000
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31389764

Observation of Light-by-Light Scattering in Ultraperipheral Pb+Pb Collisions with the ATLAS Detector Aad G, Abbott B, Abbott DC et al. Physical Review Letters (2019) 123(7)

Team

Postdoctoral Researchers
Xueying Mao, Elzbieta Stankiewicz

PhD Students
Tanyu Guo, Caitlin Davis, Yeuzhou Zhang

Research Technician
Edwina Burke

Biography

Education