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The Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM) at the University of Oxford has a global reach and significant breadth in terms of capabilities and capacity.
Catherine Green: DNA replication and Cancer
The process of DNA replication is complex, and mistakes can lead to genome instability. Surveillance systems are not always successful which results in mutations that have the potential to inactivate genes or change their activity. This can lead to cancer, and many chemotherapeutic drugs are designed to disrupt DNA replication. A better understanding of these mechanisms can help us develop new drugs with reduced side effects.
Tao Dong: Translational Immunology
While a robust and appropriate T cell response is typically beneficial to the host during human infections, a weak or inappropriate response can be ineffective or even have a detrimental effect. Over the past two decades, Prof Tao Dong's research group has been working to understand the key factors required for efficient viral control by T cells in several different viral infections and cancers.
Skirmantas Kriaucionis: Epigenetic modifications and cancer
Although all cells in our body have the same genome, they look different and perform different functions. Epigenetic modifications such as methylations ensure which sets of genes are expressed in specific cells and how this specificity is inherited. Cancer cells show particular epigenetic abnormalities which can be targeted for cancer therapies.
Ross Chapman: Repairing DNA damage
Whilst controlled DNA breaks allow for our vast repertoire of antibodies, DNA damage happening out of context can lead to cancer or predisposition to cancer. Recent developments in personalised medicine exploit the DNA repair weaknesses of cancer cells to selectively kill them. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms can help develop innovative and targeted therapies.
John Christianson: Cleaning up misfolded proteins
Misfolded proteins can either create the loss of a cellular function, or escape degradation, causing aggregation diseases. Better knowledge of these mechanisms helps us understand the root cause of different kind of diseases, and also develop targets for therapeutic intervention.
Robert Gilbert: Targeting cancer mechanisms
Switching mechanisms within our cells are in part responsible for their development. MicroRNAs control a whole set of proteins associated with stem cell biology, particularly cancer stem cells. Targeting these components raises the potential for new anti-cancer therapeutics, which work by switching off protein production rather than inhibiting them later.
Colin Goding: Melanoma
Melanoma or skin cancer is one of the fastest rising cancer types. When identified early, melanoma is relatively easy to cure, but once it starts to metastasise, it becomes very difficult to treat. Treatments rapidely induce drug resistance. However, recent research has shown that within a tumour, it is possible to change drug resistant cells to drug sensitive cells, opening possibilities for new therapies.
Panagis Filippakopoulos: Targeting epigenetics to treat cancer
Transcription is a tightly regulated process, where chemical modifications initiate the duplication of genetic material. This epigenetic process is often dysregulated in cancer, but it can be targeted with small molecule inhibitors. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underpinning disease will ultimately help develop better drugs.
Jenny Taylor: Personalised medicine
Clinical diagnoses can be broad descriptions, but today's test results can help better understand the condition as well as target treatment. Cancer is a good example in which personalised medicine can help decide which molecular targeted therapy is most appropriate.
Ian Tomlinson: Cancer predisposition and evolution
Identifying genes that increase the risk of bowel or other cancers allows us to offer preventative measures, such as removing tumours at an early stage. A better understanding of how and why cancers grow also helps develop improved treatments.
Gareth Bond: Human Cancer Genetics
There is great heterogeneity between individuals in their risk of developing cancer, disease progression and responses to therapy. Specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are associated with human cancers. They have the potential to help us identify individuals more at risk of developing cancer, and better target preventative or therapeutic strategies.
Benjamin Schuster-Böckler: Cancer Informatics
Cancer research now generates huge amounts of data, and sophisticated computational tools are needed to answer biological questions. Making sense of this variability at the molecular level will help us better tailor treatments to individual cancer patients.
Simon Leedham: Stem cells and cancer
Chemical messages, or morphogens, control processes in gasrointestinal stem cells such as cell division, cell differentiation and specialisation. Cancer occurs when cell division becomes out of control and one of the key features of a cancer cell is that it no longer responds to morphogens that tell it to stop dividing. They can then gain mutations that lead to the development of cancer.
Mads Gyrd-Hansen: Cancer and innate immunity
Ubiquitin signalling is an important part of the inflammatory response. However when inappropriately regulated e.g. as a result of hereditary or somatic gene mutations or infection by pathogens, this may result in serious pathologies, including immunodeficiency, chronic inflammation and cancer.
Bee Wee: Palliative Care
Palliative care is the care of people with a progressive, life-limiting illness. Since today people live longer with a cancer or another advanced progressive disease, they often experience fatigue. Research at the bedside aims to reduce symptoms and improve the quality of what is left of their life.
Xin Lu: Cancer and regenerative medicine
Identifying the switches that turn cell growth off and on would have profound implications for cancer medicine. If the right mechanisms can be found, cancer cells could be targeted specifically, resulting in more efficient treatments. Nuclear reprogramming could also enable cells to be utilized more safely and effectively in regenerative medicine.
Yvonne Jones: Cancer and Protein Crystallography
Cells communicate through receptors on their surface. Diseases are triggered when these finely tuned systems don’t work correctly. We can now look at the signalling complexes down to the atomic level. This knowledge might help us develop therapies to grow nerve cells through a scar in the spinal cord, stop cancer from growing and spreading, or develop anti-cancer vaccines.
Chris Pugh: Renal Disease
Oxygen sensing mechanisms, first discovered as a result of studies on the production of the kidney hormone erythropoietin, regulate about 1000 different genes that control all sorts of processes including metabolism, blood vessel growth and blood flow. A better understanding of the oxygen sensing pathway might help us design better therapies for disorders that involve oxygenation problems, such as angina and cancer.
Opher Gileadi: Genome Integrity
Our cells have many proteins that maintain the integrity of the DNA by repairing DNA damage and by preventing cells from dividing until any damage to the DNA is properly repaired. We aim to understand the mechanisms of action and to modify the activity of DNA repair proteins.