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 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 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 Lucas Baumard
In my research, I examine the response of immune cells to different chemotherapy drugs in order to develop more effective cancer immunotherapy combinations. I use patient-derived organoids (from oesophageal cancer patients), 3D models, T cell co-culture models, flow cytometry, IHC(-F, H&E) and ELISA.
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 Kirsty Brooksbank
My research is focussed on trying to understand the connection between DNA damage repair deficiency and response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). We have a particular focus on investigating the variable response rates to ICIs observed in DNA mismatch repair deficient cancers.
Dr Lauryn Buckley-Benbow
My research investigates the mechanisms of sensitisation to PARP and ATR inhibitors and how dysfunction of normal DNA replication leads to genome instability and cancer.
Dr Jonathan Burden
My research investigates how centrosome amplification in breast cancer impacts angiogenesis and the tumour microenvironment, and how this can be targeted as a potential cancer therapy.
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 Arantxa Carrasco Leon
My research project aims to identify germline mutations in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and to understand their contribution in the development of these haematological diseases, using in vitro and ex vivo models. This study will lead to a step forward in the diagnosis and treatment of this group of life-threatening diseases.
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 Alice Coomer
My research aims to understand the mechanisms through which long noncoding RNAs can control genome stability in cancer.
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 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 Daniele Di Biagio
Daniele Di Biagio is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London.
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 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 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 Lou Salome Herman
My current research focuses on investigating B and T cell population differences in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) mouse models before and after Bruton Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) inhibitor treatments.
Dr Elien Heylen
My research is focused on the tumour microenvironment of breast cancer with a particular focus on metabolic crosstalk between pericytes and its surrounding environment.
Dr Amanda Jimenez-Pompa
I am interested in unveiling and modelling the mechanisms that drive clonal haematopoiesis and exploring niche-based therapies to prevent it, as clonal haematopoiesis has been recently linked to an increase in the development of leukaemia and cardiovascular conditions.
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 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 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 Audrey Lumeau
My research focuses on understanding the relationship between chromosome instability mechanisms and tumour cells’ resistance to therapies.
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 Sandra M. Martin-Guerrero
My work is focused on exploiting cell cycle vulnerabilities in tumour cells, particularly the role of MASTL or Greatwall kinase in cell cycle control. My research will explore the role of MASTL in AML and whether it could be a new therapeutic target in this disease.
Dr Megha Meena
We use novel mass cytometry technology following allogeneic haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation in patients, to define the global landscape of immune-cell populations preceding development of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD) and to identify a dominant immunoregulatory role for subsets of CD56hi NK cells in limiting alloreative T-cell expansion and aGvHD.
Dr Nathaniel Mon Père
I investigate mathematical properties of somatic evolution in the context of both cancerous and healthy tissue.
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 Max Palmer
My research focuses on implementing and developing novel radioisotopes for targeted alpha therapy and improving stability and pharmacokinetics of radiolabelled peptides.
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 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 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 James Scarth
My research employs 3D tissue models of oncogenic HPV infection to study the contribution of oncogene-induced replication stress (Oi-RS) and genomic instability to cancer initiation.
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 Emma Taggart
My research aims to investigate the immune microenvironment in colorectal cancer, and particularly how it influences response to immunotherapy. To explore this, I am developing co-culture models using patient-derived colorectal cancer tissue and primary human immune cells including T cells and macrophages.
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 Tamsin Wilcock
My research focuses on developing novel methodology for in-cell monitoring of direct downstream kinase phosphorylation and phospho-isoform substrate specificity. This work will contribute towards enhancing our understanding of cell cycle protein signalling and elucidating the role of the activation loop in substrate switching.
Dr Mike Williams
My research focusses on understanding cancer-specific metabolism in acute myeloid leukaemia and targeting this metabolism to overcome therapeutic resistance. I also explore the role of diet and obesity in leukaemogenesis and response to therapy.
Dr Mingyu Ye
My research focuses on Vaccinia virus (VACV) as a candidate for oncolytic virotherapy, an extremely effective strategy that can simultaneously target multiple features of the suppressive tumour microenvironment (TME) in cancer and sensitize the tumours to other forms of immune or traditional therapeutics.
Dr Zuoyi Zhao
My research is focused on cancer immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer, particularly immune-stimulatory molecules, armed oncolytic viruses and CAR T-cells.