As a clinician I witnessed first-hand the transformative effects of immunotherapy on difficult to treat cancers, achieving the possibility of a "cure" for metastatic cancer. This inspired me to go into research to understand immune- tumour interactions further and test new immune-based therapies.
I hope that this will impact cancer patients by providing new treatments to patients who would not have had access to immunotherapy as well as expanding the use of oncolytic viruses which are an exciting treatment modality.
I chose this project to research how we can improve radiotherapy for men with prostate cancer, and train in precision MRI-adaptive radiotherapy. Prostate radiotherapy currently has good cure rates for localised disease, but can cause longstanding side-effects.
I chose this project because invasive lobular breast cancer (ILC) is a largely understudied subtype of breast cancer. These tumours tend to be more resistant to chemotherapy, which limits therapeutic options once they metastasise.
Additionally, ILC carries a greater risk of late recurrence and exhibits a unique pattern of metastasis, often spreading to areas like serosal surfaces, bone, omentum, ovaries, and leptomeninges; sites that are challenging to biopsy. By focusing on blood biopsies, which can capture circulating tumour cells and cell-free DNA, this approach offers a less invasive method for monitoring patients. It also provides valuable insights into the biology of metastatic disease and helps us investigate the mechanisms behind treatment resistance
I learned Korean just to understand K-dramas!
Many cancers such as lung cancer and melanoma have been revolutionised by immunotherapy, which forces the immune system to attack cancer cells. However, ovarian cancer has not seen the same benefit. My project is all about trying to make a model of ovarian cancer in the lab which might give us some insight into why this might be the case. If we can do this, our new understanding may lead to novel and effective ovarian cancer treatments for patients in the future.
I go fishing semi-regularly and am a big fan of a sport called kendo - a form of Japanese fencing with bamboo sticks and metal helmets!