The NIHR Imperial BRC aims to improve personalised cancer and leukaemia care through the development of improved biomarkers for individual care and of therapies to overcome resistance to currently-used drugs. With the knowledge generated by the Centre, we are able to diagnose disease earlier and stratify patients into discrete groups for personalised treatment. Our research integrates information from the clinic with multidimensional omics techniques, as well as genetics, bioinformatics, and molecular imaging. We are developing systems approaches that underpin three main areas of work:
Complex clinical trials
Biomarker-based approaches have the potential to enable a stratified approach to therapy selection for patients with treatment-resistant disease. We test this potential via a range of complex clinical trials involving patients and clinicians.
Living with and beyond cancer
Following successful treatment with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, or bone marrow transplant, patients may still relapse. We are developing tests that can detect traces of residual disease, as well as those that predict autoimmune disease following bone marrow transplant.
New technologies to understand resistance to therapy
Many cancers will become resistant to therapies over time. We are working to understand the mechanisms behind the development of resistance. Our aim is to design drugs that prevent resistance from arising.
We work with a number of centres of excellence across Imperial College London, including the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Imperial Centre, Imperial Experimental Cancer Medicines Centre, Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, and Bloodwise. This has enabled us to develop a translational research infrastructure that supports new research into optimising the patient journey, stratification of patients, and dynamic monitoring, phenotyping and modelling of cancers.
At the NIHR Imperial College Biomedical Research Centre, our facilities, and the techniques we have at our fingertips, enable us to carry out ground-breaking research. We have some of the best scientists and technical staff in the world, who use the most modern approaches to make rapid progress in this vitally important area of medical research.
Key Individuals
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Professor Charles Coombes
Theme Lead, Cancer -
Dr Aristeidis Chaidos
Consultant Haematologist -
Dr Danielle Power
Consultant Clinical Oncologist -
Dr Dragana Milojkovic
Consultant Haematologist -
Dr Harpreet Wasan
Consultant Oncologist -
Dr Holger Auner
Clinical Senior Lecturer -
Dr Jesus Gil
Professor of Cell Proliferation -
Dr Matthew Fuchter
Reader in Chemistry -
Dr Nichola Cooper
Consultant Haematologist -
Dr Niklas Feldhahn
Junior Bennett Fellow of Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research -
Dr Simona Parinello
Honorary Senior Lecturer -
Dr Susan Cleator
Oncologist -
Professor Anastasios Karadimitris
Professor of Haematology -
Professor Anthony Barrett
Head of Synthesis -
Professor David Klug
Chair of the Institute of Chemical Biology -
Professor David Rueda
Chair of Molecular and Cellular Medicine -
Professor Guido Franzoso
Chain in Inflammation and Signal Transduction -
Professor Hani Gabra
Professor of Medical Oncology -
Professor Jane Apperley
Chair of the Department of Haematology -
Professor Justin Stebbing
Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology -
Professor Justin Vale
Consultant Urological Surgeon -
Professor Martyn Boutelle
Professor of Biomedical Sensors Engineering -
Professor Michael Laffan
Professor of Haemostasis & Thrombosis -
Professor Michael Seckl
Professor of Molecular Cancer Medicine -
Professor Robert Brown
Head of Division of Cancer / Chair in Translational Oncology -
Professor Yuri Korchev
Professor of Biophysics