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13th December 2019
Today we welcomed members of the Prostate Cancer Research Charity (PCRC) to our labs at the UCL Cancer Institute. They are funding our group to enable us to further the translational work on the STAMPEDE trial, to help tailor treatment for prostate cancer patients.
We hosted our collaborators from Trento, led by Francesca Demichelis, on the hugely exciting PRIME project, an Accelerator Award funded by CRUK, at the Cancer Institute. We discussed the last few months’ progress, as well as our upcoming plans. It was an opportunity to see Francesco, a PRIME Clinical Research Fellow who has recently returned to Italy following a few months in the team, and welcome Nicole, also a Clinical Research Fellow who is working on PRIME.
11th December 2019
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We had our Attard Lab Christmas party at Mamuska, a delicious Polish restaurant, where we enjoyed pierogi, gulasz and (sensible amounts of) vodka. A great opportunity to relax, unwind and get into the festive spirit.
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Emily and Larissa, both Clinical Research Fellows working on our STRATOSPHERE project, presented updated data to the Biological Research Group of the STAMPEDE clinical trial team. While still preliminary, it is very exciting. Watch this space for more!
3rd December 2019
Anjui passed his viva today! Thank you to his examiners Dr Mark Linch (UCL) and Dr Charlie Massie (CRUK Cambridge Centre) who gave him a grilling on his thesis entitled "Circulating Cell-Free DNA Methylation Analysis of Metastatic Prostate Cancer". Anjui is remaining in the group as a postdoc, continuing the work he did during his PhD, as well as continuing his medical training at UCLH.
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26th September 2019
We are very excited that our paper entitled "Plasma Androgen Receptor Copy Number Status at Emergence of Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: A Pooled Multicohort Analysis" was published in JCO Precision Oncology. A large collaborative effort which demonstrated that patients with a plasma androgen receptor (AR) copy number value of 1.92 or greater had aggressive disease that is poorly responsive to AR targeting and is associated with a prior short response to primary androgen-deprivation therapy.
23rd September 2019
We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded funding by the PCRC (Prostate Cancer Research Charity) to expand our work characterising tumours from the STAMPEDE clinical trial to identify novel biomarkers. This will enable us to determine which patients stand to benefit from which treatment. More details can be found on the PCRC webpage.
15th July 2019
We held our second team Away Day at Goodenough College, London, where we spent the morning working in teams to address questions that had been proposed, and were voted on, by lab members. These included how to design the ultimate study/experiment to characterise prostate cancer evolution, different ways automisation and AI could replace or hopefully just complement us and how we could improve the way we work to maximize our output and impact without compromising team spirit? In the afternoon, we had presentations on methylation in prostate cancer and methods for integrating different types of data. We finished off the day with a BBQ and some well deserved drinks!
Blanca, Clinical Research Fellow, and Daniel, Senior Research Fellow, were at UCLH for the UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences Research Open Day, which celebrates all the ground-breaking research taking place at UCL. They were on hand to discuss the ReImagine project with visitors.
23rd-26th June 2019
Five members of the team, Clinical Fellows Blanca, Emily and Francesco, as well as one of our Computational Biologists, Mahedi, and Senior Research Fellow, Marina, attended the European Association for Cancer Research Cancer Genomics Conference at Churchill College in Cambridge. An opportunity for the team to enjoy some cutting-edge science, for Emily and Marina to present preliminary work from the STRATOSPHERE Consortium, but also to spend some time with collaborators from Alex Wyatt's team from Vancouver, taking part in a time honoured Cambridge tradition: punting.
23rd June 2019
Ania, Lab Manager, and Anu, Clinical Fellow, represented the team on a ReImagine stand at the Cancer Survivors' Day at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.
15th June 2019
Anu, Clinical Research Fellow, Daniel, Senior Research Fellow and Mazlina, Research Fellow, all attended Prostate Cancer UK's 10k March for Men at the Olympic Stadium in London to thank and recognise PCUK for all the support they have given us over the years.
21st May 2019
Maria, Clinical Research Fellow, and Sharan, Research Assistant, attended the International Clinical Trials’ Day at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust on the ReImagine (see News from 18th October) stand, talking about the work the team will be doing on the project.
9th April 2019
The PCF-SELECT (Specific Evaluation in Liquid biopsies of Established prostate Cancer Targets) Plasma DNA Assay team, a collaboration between the Treatment Resistance team, Weill Cornell, The University of Trento, The University of British Columbia, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Washington University and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, met up at the Cancer Institute for an update on the project's progress. Funded in late 2016 by the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the team is developing a novel genomics sequencing test capable of identifying actionable mutations from a simple blood sample.
2nd April 2019
25th January 2019
The team enjoyed a night out at Hammersmith Town Hall to celebrate Burns Night, in honour of the Scotland's National Poet - Robert Burns - who's birthday is 25th January.
The lab ate haggis, neeps and tatties, and took part in a Ceilidh, which is traditional Scottish Dancing. Gert even wore his kilt!
The PRIME team (see News from 22nd September 2018), a CRUK funded collaboration between the Treatment Resistance team and Francesca Demichelis' team at the University of Trento, met up in Trento for their first face to face project update, having kept in touch with teleconferencing previously.
After the hard work, there was pizza of course!
We look forward to bringing you updates from the team's work in the next few months and years.
12th December 2019
10th December 2019
5th July 2019
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