Find out about the latest CoL Centre news plus upcoming events, seminars, courses, networking and project calls

In this newsletter we have focused on what our trainees have been doing over the past few months during the lockdown. We would also like to congratulate Dr Vinaya Srirangam Nadhamuni who won QMUL’s 3 minute thesis competition in June and will now go on to represent the University at the national semi finals. You can view her winning video here.

With the restrictions easing we hope that you are all able to get back to the bench soon and that we will be able to start running our events again!

Sarah Duncan, working on the Oncology ward at Barts Hospital

I’ve been back working in the NHS to help support the COVID 19 response. I am based in oncology. Initially, I was working on the on-call rota so our junior doctors could be released to work in the ITU (intensive therapy unit).  I am now seeing patients in our cancer assessment unit to try and reduce the number of oncology patients attending A&E.

Alessandra Ferrelli, PhD student, working on her balcony

I am in my first year of my PhD, which focuses on the study of mesenchymal stromal cells in myeloproliferative neoplasms, a type of blood cancer. When the lockdown started, I was worried to lose precious time for my first experiments in the lab. Fortunately, with the guidance of my supervisors and colleagues, I found many things that I could do working from home.

At the moment, I am writing a scientific review, which is helping me to build a deeper understanding of the disease that I am working on. I am following scientific webinars to improve my knowledge in the field, and I am also using this time to do a course in R programming. At the beginning of the lockdown, I did not realise how many things I can do while working from my balcony, enjoying the unexpected London sunshine!

During this weird and sometimes challenging period, I found myself trying different activities not to get bored. I discovered how beautiful it is to spend some time in taking care of my body. Now I eat healthier and I also join online yoga classes and different workout sessions almost daily.

I cannot wait to go back to the lab, start my experiments and see my colleagues again but, surprisingly, this lockdown taught me that the scientist life is not only doing experiments physically. It is essential to study deeply the area of your project, to find original and new questions, to do the appropriate training, and also to plan carefully which experiments you need to do to answer a scientific question.

I will probably start my experiments again in July, and I hope to bring some new energy, preparation and motivation to my PhD!

Jiexin Zheng, working on the Haematology-Oncology ward at UCLH.

As a clinical haematologist, it was clear that academic medics will be needed to help with the Covid-19 effort but there was a lot of uncertainty and anxiety at the beginning of lockdown in terms of where we will be re-deployed. Which hospital has the greatest need? Will it be somewhere I have never worked at before? Will I be working in a specialty I haven’t worked at before? However I felt much more grounded and useful once I started work on the UCLH haematology-oncology Covid-19 ward. This was set up to provide a specialist service for haematology-oncology patients who also have Covid-19; its aim was to provide a separate service from the routine non-Covid-19 service and to protect our cohort of immunocompromised and vulnerable patients. Pleasingly, this has been successful as there has not been any hospital acquired Covid-19 transmission in haematology-oncology since the start of the service.  We have had to get to grips rapidly with a new disease – learning the tempo of the disease, its complications and getting up to speed with novel treatments; but I have been privileged to be able to do this in a group of patients that I understand well, and was able to put my specialist knowledge to good use.

As the numbers of Covid-19 infections have dwindled and testing has improved, the need for a separate Covid-19 service has also gone. I have been re-re-deployed to the Oxford Phase II/III Covid-19 vaccine trials which have opened a site at UCLH. It has been very exciting to be involved in the vaccine trial at this stage and the numbers of UCLH clinical staff who have volunteered for the trial has been heart-warming.

The PhD has definitely been on the back-burner- despite attempts to join lab meetings on my days off- I’m very much looking forward to getting back to the lab in July!

Eva Bugallo Blanco, volunteering in a COVID-19 lab

I am a first year PhD student at King’s College London. My research aims to develop an absolute quantification method for CAR T-cell immunotherapy using nuclear imaging, a non-invasive imaging technique which can be done repetitively and that provides vital information to better determine the dosage required for a significantly relevant response and the reasons behind treatment failure or success.

My first two weeks working from home were somewhat strangely challenging ­­­–– all of a sudden, I found myself glued to my computer and strongly missing my everyday routines at my lab bench. I was not wasting my time, though –– on the contrary, I took advantage of this unexpected time off to focus even more thoroughly on data analysis, literature review, writing my 9-month PhD report and designing the experiments to perform once normal activity resumes. Even so, I couldn´t help but feel a little uneasy. I was eager to find a way to contribute my research skills to the fight against this dreadful pandemic.

Since April I have been volunteering at King’s College London in a research project named COVID-IP . This project focuses on immunophenotyping blood samples from patients that have been or are infected with Covid-19 with a view to gaining a better understanding of the patients’ immune response to the infection and its relationship with the symptoms presented.

If you would like to find out more please visit https://www.immunophenotype.org/

Vinaya Srirangan Nadhamuni, working from home

During the lockdown, I have been mainly trying to get to grips with computational analysis, spending more time with the QMUL HPC cluster than ever before! Being a histopathology trainee, I have also been asked to cover staff shortages at the Royal London on an as-needed basis.The last few weeks have been a strange experience! Two weeks into the lockdown,  I gave my first lab presentation via Zoom, something I was certainly not expecting. I have used the time spent working from home to complete a distance-learning PGCert. on clinical bioinformatics that I had started a few months ago and submit an entry to the QMUL three-minute thesis competition ( you can view the video here). Currently, I am hoping to finish my nine-month report, continue with computational work and plan experiments for when I return to the lab. With the extra time on hand, I have started growing my own dahlias and hope to improve my skills playing the Veena (a South Indian string instrument).

CoL Centre Student Recruitment

The 2020 intake of CoL Centre trainees has now been completed and we have added 3 clinical fellows, 10  PhD students (7 of which are RadNet students) and 3 MBPhD student to our programme so far. We look forward to welcoming  them at their induction on the 1st of October.

Next week we will be launching advertising to recruit an AstraZeneca clinical PhD  fellow; applications will close on the 14th of August 2020. Please check the website training pages for more details on how to apply.

Funding Calls

2021 PhD and CRTF recruitment

The project proposal call for 2021 PhD studentships,  clinical fellowships and MBPhD studentships from CoL Centre faculty is now open. Projects should be based at one of the Centre partners (UCL, King’s, Barts or the Crick), fall under the CoL Centre or RadNet research themes and include multi-disciplinary training and some exposure to physical sciences.

If you would like more information or an application form please email

Annabelle Scott: annabelle.scott@ucl.ac.uk

Application Deadline: Thursday 30th July 2020

External Conferences and Events

NCITA webinar, Optimizing Application of Imaging in Trials. Friday 31 July 2020, 14.00-16.00
This is the third and final NCITA webinar of this series and replaces the NCITA Annual Conference which was cancelled due to the COVID19 pandemic.

• Challenges and success of novel imaging in prostate cancer, Professor Shonit Punwani, UCL
• Getting the biostatistics right, Prof Sue Mallett, UCL,
• Clinical trials and the impact of imaging advances in prostate cancer, Professor Hashim Ahmed, Imperial College London

If you would like to attend please register here

Crick Cancer Research Symposium, 5-6 October – Registration now open
Location: The Francis Crick Institute and online
This two-day biennial symposium which alternates with the larger Crick Cancer Conference will include a keynote from Fiona Watt, FRS FMedSci, alongside a full programme of invited speaker talks and selected short talks.
Sessions will include: Cancer invasion and metastasis, Cancer and the immune system, Cancer heterogeneity and evolution, Gene and metabolic networks in cancer.
Please register here

What is your role and what does it involve? 
I am a Lecturer in Radiobiology at King’s College London and also Academic Lead for Public Engagement (PE) on the CoL RADNET Radiation Research Unit.
As a lecturer, I teach students from undergraduate to Masters level, supervise PhD students, and perform research by getting funding to support students or postdocs. My research is in trying to understand how cells react to radiation and radioactivity and determining how best to use radionuclides to image and treat diseases like cancer, whilst minimising unwanted damage and side effects. Also, my group is creating a novel tool using radioactivity to image immune cells like macrophages to then determine how they respond to radiotherapy.
As Academic Lead for PE, my role is to initiate conversations and discussions with people of the general public or patients around the topic of radiation, which in turn will influence how and on what we perform our scientific research.What achievement are you most proud of?
Professionally, I would say seeing my students do so well. However, personally, I would have to admit it is the fact that since starting my lectureship in 2015, I have had 2 kids and still managed to get grants, papers, and grow my group to the great team we are today. Every day I try hard to create a work/life balance that suits me so I can not only keep up the work momentum but also enjoy the more traditional things in life. By doing this, I still enjoy work and will hopefully still enjoy it for many years or decades to come. I also encourage my group to follow my lead in this. Let’s face it; science is a marathon, not a sprint.What would it surprise people to know about you?
I grew up in an army household – my mum was even amongst the first women in the Dutch army. As such though, I moved countries and houses a lot when I was little. The house I currently live in is the one I have stayed in the longest at any one time (now 5 years already).What is your favourite movie / music album?
My favourite music is the soundtrack to Les Miserables. I have not read the book, but have seen the film and musical and the music is just very powerful and beautiful.What do you like to do when you are not working?
With 2 kids under 5, I spend a lot of my time playing on the floor, reading books, or making dens. When I do get some me-time, I like to go for a run (currently on week 4 of “Couch to 5k”) and potter in the garden where we are growing lots of vegetables and fruit. I also have the odd night out, although this is clearly not happening during this lockdown period.Do you have favourite joke?
I am awful at jokes, but I do remember something my dad wrote for me when I was little;
“Roses are red
Violets are blue
I can’t write poems
So this doesn’t rhyme”

In this unprecedented time we hope that you are all safe and well. We would like to express our thanks to everyone for finding innovative ways to continue generating great research, and to those of you that are directly involved in the Covid-19 response.

News

CoL Centre Symposium – 25 February 2020

The CoL Centre annual symposium, held at the Crick, was a great success and really showcased the outstanding research and collaborations that have developed within the Centre. Talks were given by researchers working in all four research programme areas. Some highlights included a fascinating talk on targeting Wnt signalling in colorectal cancer by Dr Vivian Li (Crick). In the cross-disciplinary approaches enhancing biotherapeutics session Prof Phil Blower (King’s) discussed molecular imaging techniques in cancer using novel radiotracers while Prof Axel Behrens (Crick) gave a very entertaining lecture on the mechanisms of tumour heterogeneity. In session 3, Prof Sergio Quezada (UCL) presented the mechanisms to inform development of novel therapeutics and in the final paediatric cancer session Prof Silvia Marino (QMUL) spoke about her research on the epigenetic deregulation in malignant brain tumours. Last year’s Development Fund winners, Prof Francesca Ciccarelli (King’s / Crick) and Dr Chris Tape (UCL), also gave short talks on how this funding has impacted their research. Finally, our first year PhD students and clinical fellows introduced their projects to the CoLCentre via the form of short presentations.

In November 2019 CRUK awarded funding to the CoL Centre as part of its radiation network (RadNet) initiative. This UK wide network (which includes 7 CRUK centres of excellence) will bring together researchers across discovery, translational and clinical research that will ultimately improve patient outcomes.

The CRUK City of London Radiation Research Unit will feature an ambitious research programme for radiation oncology and radiation biology and will accelerate the development of advanced radiotherapy techniques, challenging the boundaries of this mainstay treatment through world-first exploratory projects.

If you would like more information on RadNet please visit the website or contact: cruk-radnet-cityoflondon@ucl.ac.uk 

CoL Centre Student Recruitment

The 2020 intake of CoL Centre trainees is well underway and we have recruited 3 clinical fellows, 3 PhD students and 1 MBPhD student to our programme so far. We hope to continue expanding our student cohort with the addition of more MBPhD and RadNet students and look forward to welcoming all to the programme later this year.

Currently we have a call open for RadNet PhD studentships; applications close on the 14th of April 2020. Please click here for more details.

Calls and Awards

Funding Calls

RadNet Spring 2020 seed funding:

5 awards of up to £25,000 are available to pump-prime and support collaborative groups who are tackling the major challenges in radiobiology and radio-oncology. Projects are expected to commence in May 2020. For more information please visit the website

Application Deadline: midnight on Wednesday, 15th April 2020

Development Fund Awardees

The CoL Centre Development Fund provides short-term pump-priming funds (up to £25 000 over a year) to support innovative research projects and support inspirational, proof-of-concept cancer research throughout the Centre and generate preliminary data to leverage further funding.

Congratulations to the following CoL Centre faculty that have received funding for this year:

• Understanding the impact of systemic immune tolerance caused by melanoma interacting with the liver microenvironment. Erik Sahai (Crick), Mala Maini (UCL) Co-applicants: Rebecca Lee (Crick), Laura Pallett (UCL), Mariana Diniz (UCL).
• Tracing and timing pre-cancerous clonal dynamics in normal tissues. Marnix Jansen (UCL) Co-applicants: Kit Curtius (Barts), David Graham (UCL), Matthew Banks (UCL).
• The differential contribution of tumour infiltrating and circulating neutrophils to chemotherapy resistance in early breast cancers. Sheeba Irshad (KCL) Co-applicants: Ilaria Malanchi (Crick), Shahram Kordasti (KCL).
•  Evolution and ecology of oesophageal adenocarcinoma under neoadjuvant treatment. Trevor Graham (Barts). Co-applicants: Melissa Schmidt (Barts), Marnix Jansen (UCL), Benny Chain (UCL).
• Targeted reversal of epigenetic silencing at specific tumour suppressor genes in lymphoma. Richard Jenner (UCL) Co-applicants: Jude Fitzgibbon (Barts)
• Developing organotypic models of human osteosarcoma. Sibylle Mittnacht (UCL) Co-applicants: Wenhui Song (UCL), Ilaria Malanchi (Crick).

Events

We are working on how to transfer upcoming events and seminars to online platforms. As soon as we have these up and running we will post the details on the events webpage.

What is your role and what does it involve? 
I am the CoL Centre Project Manager, which means I am the person responsible for implementing and coordinating all Centre activity. That includes a huge range of tasks – some examples are: liaising with lawyers to set up a partnership agreement, liaising with HR and PIs to hire all the Centre staff; supporting the themes to develop their scientific programs; managing networking activities like seminars, the symposium; and many more including managing the budget and agreeing the strategic direction with the Executive Board. This Centre is a partnership of four major institutions: UCL, Barts, King’s and the Crick, and it is important that there is coordination across them. I make sure that this is the case.

What achievement are you most proud of?
The Centre has now been operating full steam for a year. When I started, the Centre was not operational. Now we have 22 members of staff and 10 students who are all working to help deliver the mission of the Centre; to develop new biotherapies for cancer. In just one year we are starting to see new discoveries that will shape how cancer patients are treated in the future. I am proud of having set the operational grounds that enable scientists to make this happen.

What would it surprise people to know about you?
That I am not a singer in my spare time……but my sister is. Luckily she did not get my name as it would be rather bizarre to have two singers with the same name Christina Aguilera. She is Marta Aguilera, check her out on Spotify.

What is your favourite movie / music album?
I love British films like Four weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually, maybe that is what really inspired me to move to London actually, not science.

What do you like to do when you are not working for the CoL Centre?
I like playing tennis, I love going out for dinner or just to the pub with friends and I like travelling a lot. Since I had kids, I do a lot less of those, so when I am not working, I would like to do all those things, instead I am usually playing snakes and ladders or watching Peppa Pig.

Do you have favourite joke?
I love jokes, another of my favourite things is to watch comedy.
Here is one from Spain to the UK (with love): we see the British as the ones that invented football and then forgot how to play it …

and finally…..

Some of the new ways that we are all working

Clockwise from top left
Eva Bugallo Blanco (CoL Centre PhD student) “Now it’s the time to focus on many other tasks essential for our research but usually neglected due to the busy and long days spent running experiments in the lab. While working from home I have dedicated some days to data analysis to draw conclusions from finished experiments and flag points that need to be addressed but most of my time goes into reading the latest literature in the field and giving myself the time to think about other areas I would like to explore and how I could do that during my PhD.”

Tim Witney’s lab banding together with specially designed “scientist working from home” t-shirts!

A CoL Centre management team zoom meeting with props!

Alessandra Ferrelli (CoL Centre PhD student) is “reading papers, will start writing a review article in my field and am also following different webinars and having virtual meetings with my supervisors and my team members. I try to set deadlines in order to remain concentrated at home, and I think it is working well. Although I cannot perform any experiments, there are loads of things that I can do to make this time as productive as possible!”