CRUK Manchester Centre Celebration Event

This event boasted 85 attendees from across the Manchester cancer ecosystem, as well as visitors from further afield including collaborators at the CRUK Oxford and Cambridge Centres. Feedback from the event was extremely positive, recognising our efforts to showcase a broad range of talks, and include PPIE and PhD student talks in this day.

We heard from theme leads and researchers working on the award as well as PhD students funded through the linked CRUK funding streams. Our brilliant Keynote Speaker, Professor Joachim Weischenfeldt, University of Copenhagen, present on “Cancer genomics: Etiologies, mutational processes and clinical trajectories”.

Find out more about who spoke in our packed agenda below.

A strong showcase of our research strengths

Centre Director, Professor Rob Bristow opened the centre celebration confirming our vision of translational science and delivering cancer precision for all. Following this, we heard from our Commercialisation Lead, Dr Nathalie Dhomen, as she discussed how the Centre supports translation and commercialisation to maximise research impact and benefit to patients. Nathalie took us on a whistle stop tour of the translational support ecosystem the Centre has access to, highlighted the diversity of innovation being translated at the Centre, and featured some commercialisation highlights, including the recipients of our Springboard Awards for translational projects.

Equality and diversity unpin all activities at the Centre, we were delighted to spotlight several projects that exemplify patient and public involvement and engagement. Dr Rebecca Holley discussed the RAPID-RT project, and Leanne Goodwin spoke about discussing genomics with patients. Amy Smith also provided practical advice to attendees with her talk on putting PPIE into practice.

Throughout the day, we spotlighted exemplar projects from each of our six themes. Dr Matthew Krebs, Dr Aine O’Reilly and Dr Alicia Marie Conway summarised the Experimental Cancer Medicine theme. They highlighted how we work in partnership with the NHS and relevant centres of excellence to advance experimental medicines.

Dr Jamie Weaver and Dr Diego Sanchez Martinez led discussion with the Integrative Pathology theme, using the exemplar case of penile cancer to illustrate how pathology interfaces with cancer research.

Imaging and Magnetic Resonance were the focal themes for Radiotherapy BioAdaption with Prof. Marcel van Herk, Michael Dubec, Dr Rob Chuter and Dr Sapna Lunj covering biomarkers in radiotherapy and oxygen enhanced MR imaging.

The Digital Cancer theme focused on artificial intelligence and real-world data with talks from Dr Lauren Scanlon, Dr Gareth Price and Dr Andre Frietas. They covered topics including generative AI and how real-world data can be used to improve cancer care.

Prof. Rob Bristow and Dr Sean Knight then led the discussion about cancer early detection, spotlighting our approach to early detection in lung cancer specifically discussing ongoing community engagement projects to target lung cancer in Manchester.

And finally, Prof. Caroline Dive, Sophie Richardson, Dr Christopher Fife and Dr Paul O-Regan covered the Cancer Biomarker theme. The team spotlighted the work they do with liquid biopsies to identify biomarkers and then how biomarkers can be used to match to clinical trials.

The scientific presentations continued with several students deliverinhg flash talks on their projects. Dr Laura Woodhouse discussed her PhD which is looking at the genetic patterns of lung cancer KRAS mutations, in her talk ‘Distinct Mutational Signatures Across KRAS Variants in Lung Adenocarcinoma: Insights into Aetiology and Genomic Heterogeneity.

Charlotte Mellor is examining cell death to better treat breast cancer. She gave a talk on ‘BioID Analysis Identifies Novel Interactions Associated with Apoptitic Priming.’

Accadius Lunayo is analysing multiomics signatures of oesophageal cancer in Kenya. His talk covered ‘Integrating Multi-Omics Signatures and Histopathology for Early Detection of the Oesophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC).

Keynote Address

We were delighted to be joined by Professor Joachim Lütken Weischenfeldt, Clinical Professor, BRIC University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet who delivered the keynote talk on Cancer genomics: Etiologies, mutational processes and clinical trajectories.

Joachim is a Clinical Professor at the BRIC University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet. Joachim has a PhD from University of Copenhagen, post doc at EMBL in Heidelberg. He has led the computational cancer genomics research group at BRIC/Finsen Laboratory since 2015 where his research group focuses on mutational processes and clonal evolution in cancer with a particular focus on genomic structural variations. Lead roles in several national and international cancer genomics consortia including DCCC, BTC, ICGC, PCAWG, PPCG.

Joachim’s laboratory is interested in the mutational mechanisms and clonal evolution of cancer, in particular mechanisms of complex structural variants and the impact on 3D chromatin organisation. His group is collaborating closely with clinicians, to identify the earliest mutational processes in a tumour.

Thank you to all who helped in the pulling together of this event, to our wonderful speakers and to all the celebration’s attendees. We are truly in awe of what we have achieved thus far and are already looking forward to our next celebration.