Our research focus
Our goal is to understand cancer at a single cell level to advance cancer biomarker discovery and translation
Our laboratory specialises in using innovative single cell techniques to deconstruct tissue samples and reveal the genetic architecture of individual cells. This allows us to study heterogeneity in a range of cancers, including breast cancer, and address key biological questions:
- How intra-tumoural heterogeneity drives tumour progression and metastasis in aggressive cancers?
- What role do the tumour microenvironment play during metastasis?
- How can we effectively monitor metastatic disease progression and prevent cancer recurrence?
- Which premalignant molecular alterations are involved in breast tumorigenesis and can rare aberrant cell populations be identified for target biomarker discovery?
- How single cell transcriptomics can be utilised to improve personalised treatment for cancer patients?
Fast facts
Metastasis refers to a disease stage when cancer cells break away and spread beyond the primary tumour to distant sites, with variable locations and volumes of organ involvement.
Created by a dynamic micro-community of cancer cells and surrounding blood, immune and stromal cells. Interactions between resident cell types can influence tumour progression and patient response to cancer treatment.
Recent publications
CLINICAL AND TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE
Single-cell RNA sequencing captures patient-level heterogeneity and associated molecular phenotypes in breast cancer pleural effusions
DOI: 10.1002/ctm2.1356
10 September 2023
Cancers
Computational Screening of Anti-Cancer Drugs Identifies a New BRCA Independent Gene Expression Signature to Predict Breast Cancer Sensitivity to Cisplatin
DOI: 10.3390/cancers14102404
13 May 2022
Scientific Data
R code and downstream analysis objects for the scRNA-seq atlas of normal and tumorigenic human breast tissue
DOI: 10.1038/s41597-022-01236-2
23 March 2022
Our team
Meet our researchers
- Dr Bhupinder Pal – Head, Cancer Single Cell Genomics Laboratory Publications
- Chamikara Liyanage - Postdoctoral Research Fellow
- Rebecca Brown - PhD Student
- Shalini Guleria - PhD Student
- Liam Neil - PhD Student