Translational Cancer Medicine

The programme will provide students with a detailed knowledge and understanding of research methods applied to rational drug design, clinical study design, molecular and cell biology, tumour immunology, genetics and cancer imaging, all of which are relevant to Translational Cancer Research. In addition practical experience will be gained through two laboratory rotations of six months duration.

Overview of subjects covered:

• Biomarkers, Biostatistics and Modelling
• Breast Cancer
• Cancer Bioinformatics
• Cancer Imaging (Optical)
• Cancer Imaging (PET)
• Clinical Trials and translational research
• Gene discovery through to therapeutic applications
• Haemato-oncology and associated genetics/genomics
• Immunology of Cancers
• Molecular Pathology
• Signal Transduction in cancers.

 

Project titles 2013-14:

• Clinical Epidemiology of Prostate Cancer in the UK
• Roles of Rho GTPases in cancer cell interaction with endothelial cells
• Applications of novel coincidence detection technology to the analysis of signalling networks in tumours
• Role of Notch2 in breast cancer recurrence and resistance to antiestrogen therapy
• Tumour associated macrophages
• Understanding the role of c-Met targeting in improving epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-focused therapy in triple negative breast cancer patients
• Increasing throughput and resolution of BRAC1/Sumo colocalisation imaging using deconvolution techniques and ligase proximity assays
• Patterns of metastatic spread and outcomes in breast cancer
• Peptide based vaccination against tumour associated antigens
• SNP and MicroRNA profiling pre and post DNMT inhibitor and immunomodulatory therapy in Low Risk MDS
• Proteomic analyses of leukaemia
• Analysis of the interaction between neoplastic B cells and the microvascular endothelium in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia
• Multiparametric imaging in cancer (radiomics)
• Molecular and/or clinical precursors of prostate cancer progression
• Molecular pathology of breast cancer precursors
• Biobanking for translational research
• Investigating DNA damage response phenotypes in triple negative breast cancers as potential biomarkers of therapy response
• Drug discovery and preclinical development
• Circulating cell free DNA and molecular biomarkers in solid tumours
• Genetic targeting of T-cells against cancer
• Identification of genes that predispose to lobular breast cancer
• Epigenetics and breast cancer: The role of JARID1B, a histone demethylase
• Changes in post-translational modifications (O-linked glycosylation) of breast cancer: The effect on tumour behaviour and immune recognition
• Exploring synthetic mimics of viral nucleic acids for tumour immunotherapy

Occupational health clearance will be required for some of the projects.