My research programme is focused on investigating mechanisms underlying disease progression in colorectal cancer, with a particular interest in signalling associated with early dissemination of tumours cells and their interaction with the tumour microenvironment. The research programme also includes development of molecular subtypes, using signalling associated with intrinsic (epithelial) and extrinsic (stromal and immune) components of the tumour.

My group employs a wide range of laboratory techniques, both “wet-lab” and “dry-lab”, by combining in vivo and in vitro molecular biology, in situ molecular pathology and in silico translational bioinformatics.

My laboratory research programme is truly interdisciplinary, performing digital pathology and standard histology characterisation of human tumour tissue samples, followed by molecular profiling and subsequent translational bioinformatics analyses, leading to biomarker assessment and validation in situ with additional scope for further assessment using flow cytometery.

My research programme then utilises this combined molecular pathology approach to develop (and inform the development of) pre-clinical models of disease, based on specific molecular and pathological subtyping information, for testing of potential therapeutic strategies to target the phenotypes of interest. Finally, given my position on a number of national colorectal clinical trial panels and international clinical/translational consortia, my research has the ability to directly link these findings into prospective clinical trials across Europe.

Although the flow of projects described above begins with tissue and proceeds via molecular analysis and model development/testing, the dynamic nature of my interdisciplinary research team enables my programme to pursue its research aims from multiple starting points in any direction.