Congratulations are in order for nine of Oxford’s early detection researchers who have led or been part of successful funding applications announced so far in 2021:
- Dr Bethan Psaila (MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine and Radcliffe Department of Medicine) has been awarded a Cancer Research UK Early Detection and Diagnosis Project Award for her project on tumour-educated platelets for early cancer diagnosis. Find out more about Bethan’s project.
- Dr Benjamin Schuster-Böckler (Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Oxford Branch) was granted funding from the Medical Research Council for a Methodology Research Project to develop algorithms that can identify both genetic variation and DNA methylation from the same sequencing data, with applications in biomedical research and detection of diseases such as cancer. Read more about Ben’s project here.
- Dr Defne Saatci and Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) have successfully applied for a Cancer Research UK Early Detection and Diagnosis Project Award to accelerate diagnosis of childhood, teenage and young adult cancer using the QResearch database. Find out more about Defne and Julia’s project here.
- Dr Onima Chowdhury (MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine and Oxford University Hospitals) won a Cancer Research UK Early Detection and Diagnosis Primer Award to investigate the clinical application of single cell sequencing for early diagnosis and response prediction in myelodysplastic syndromes. Find out more about Onima’s project here.
- Professor Ellie Barnes and Dr Azim Ansari (Nuffield Department of Medicine) win funding as part of a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award led by Professor Graham Foster (Queen Mary’s University, London) to improve assessment of liver cancer risk by identifying cancer-associated genotypes of hepatitis C in Pakistan. Read more about Ellie and Azim’s project here.
- Professor Eric O’Neill (Department of Oncology) and Dr Pui San Tan (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) are part of separate teams receiving Cancer Research UK Early Detection Innovation Awards following their attendance at the early detection sandpit on pancreatic cancer. Learn more about Eric’s and Pui San’s projects here.