Jason is an Australian who completed a PhD in 2002 at the University of New South Wales and the Garvan Institute, Sydney, with Prof Robert Sutherland. He conducted postdoctoral work with Prof. Myles Brown at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA from 2002-2006. He has been running his own group at Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute and University of Cambridge since 2006. He is currently a Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Cambridge, a Senior Group Leader at Cancer Research UK, a Fellow at Clare College and was elected an EMBO member in 2016 and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2017. His lab is interested in understanding mechanisms of hormone-dependent cancer.

CV

Eva is a PhD student since January 2016 and also works as a research assistant in the proteomics core facility since February 2014. She studied Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Thessaly in Greece and she received her Master’s degree in Molecular Medicine and Advanced Molecular Diagnostics at the Medical School of Athens in 2012. Her master's thesis was focused on the development of quantitative proteomic approaches for the detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) at the protein level in cervical samples. The mass spectrometry analysis of her thesis took place at the University of Southampton, UK where she received a Research Technician position in 2013. Her role was to accomplish the proteomic characterization of cancerous serum and tissue specimens using state of-the -art LC-MS methods.

I have a mixed computational and biological background. I did my PhD in Biology in Novosibirsk, Russia in 1995 and moved to the University of Oxford for postdoctoral research in 1996. Since 2001 I continued my postdoctoral study at the University of Essex and later, in 2004, I became a member of the core service in the Department of Biological Sciences where I provided proteomics and bioinformatics support. I joined the Carroll lab as bioinformatician in September 2015.

Alasdair studied medicine in Cambridge and Edinburgh, and then began his training in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine in Exeter. He returned to Edinburgh to undertake his PhD jointly at the Roslin Institute and the MRC Human Genetics Unit supervised by David Hume and Wendy Bickmore, studying the genomic effects of glucocorticoids on macrophages.  Alasdair came to Cambridge in 2015 from a Clinical Lecturer post at the University of Edinburgh. He has joined the Carroll group at the CRUK Cambridge Institute to further his study of how nuclear hormone receptors and their ligands bring about both acute and long-term genomic changes.

Further information about Alasdair can be found here.

Sunny is from the warm tropical island of Mauritius. He moved to Lyon, France in 2007 and obtained his Doctoral Degree in the lab of Muriel Le Romancer at the Cancer Research Centre of Lyon, where he stayed on as a Research Associate. Sunny braved the British weather and joined the Carroll lab in 2017 with an interest to study the process of metastasis in breast tumors.

Shalini is a Senior Research Associate within the Carroll lab. She has over 10 years of experience in oncology research and drug discovery and was formally at the University of Cambridge, where she led pre clinical drug development work using in vivo models of breast and pancreatic cancer on an independent research fellowship. Prior to this Shalini undertook an innovation postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Research Council of Norway exploring the utility and commercial potential of a novel anti-cancer agent. Shalini's areas of expertise include target validation, functional genomics, and the use of advanced in vivo cancer models for the development and testing of novel therapeutics. Her current area of research focuses on establishing sub-type specific interactome maps of Pancreatic and Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer models with a goal to be able to discover druggable transcription factors.

Fazal joined the lab in February 2020 as a joined postdoc with AstraZeneca and is interested in understanding mechanism of action of Selective Estrogen Receptor Degraders (SERDs). Fazal received his undergraduate from University of Camerino (Italy) and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge
investigating the mechanisms of cancer resistance in the naked mole-rat.

Giacomo studied Biotechnology for his BSc at the University of Bologna, where he undertook a MSc in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. During his Master studies, he moved to Cambridge for a 10-month internship in Dr Walid Khaled’s lab at Pharmacology department investigating novel regulators of BCL11A in Triple Negative Breast Cancer. After graduated in Italy, he came back to Cambridge to start working at bit.bio as a Research Assistant in the genome engineering/technology development team. He started PhD in Professor Jason Carroll's lab last October, where he will be working on understanding the role of ARID1A in metastatic breast cancer.

Steve works jointly between the Carroll lab and the Spring lab in the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge. His research involves the investigation of novel HER2-targeted antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of breast cancer. He is currently running a preclinical in vivo study to investigate the therapeutic potential of these ADCs. He obtained his PhD in chemistry and chemical biology from the University of Cambridge in 2019. Prior to this, he obtained his BSc from University College Dublin in 2015, 12 months of which he spent in GSK, Stevenage developing inhibitors of BET proteins.

Rike is a PhD student in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and joined the Carroll lab as a visiting scientist in December 2019. She is interested in the development of novel methods for the synthesis of antibody-drug conjugates and their evaluation in the treatment of breast cancer. Prior to her current studies, she received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry (MChem) from the University of Sheffield and conducted undergraduate research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Rebecca studied medicine at Cambridge and UCL, enrolling on UCL’s integrated MBPhD programme in 2008. She did her PhD with Professor Charles Swanton at the CRUK London Research Institute (now part of The Francis Crick Institute), investigating cancer chromosomal instability as a driver of intratumour
heterogeneity. After completing a short post-doc in the Swanton lab, she returned to medical school, qualifying in 2015. Rebecca joined the Carroll lab in 2019 as a Clinical Research Associate, working on the PIONEER trial and as a post-doc, and is now an Academic Trainee in Medical Oncology.

Danya her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Portsmouth in 2014, and then moved to Cambridge to work at Illumina for a couple of years. After this she did an MPhil at the University of Cambridge in Rare Disease and Genetics, where she worked on using iBETS in inhibition of inflammation in IBD. She then joined the Carroll Lab in 2018 as a Research Assistant and stayed on to start her PhD in October 2020. The focus of her PhD will be to establish the sub-type specific transcription factor interactions in Pancreatic Cancer.

Catarina obtained her degree in Biochemistry from the University of Porto and
undertook a MSc in Biomedical Research at the University of Coimbra. After
that, she moved to Stockholm for an internship at the Karolinska Institutet,
where she studied immunotherapeutic strategies to improve pancreatic cancer
treatment. In April 2021, Catarina joined the Carroll lab for her PhD focusing
on the role of the tumour microenvironment on the transcription factor
landscape of pancreatic cancer.

Wayne Tilley is Director of the Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Research Laboratories and the Adelaide Prostate Cancer Research Centre, University of Adelaide, South Australia. His main research interests encompass the molecular mechanisms of development and progression of breast and prostate cancer and resistance to hormonal therapies used in the treatment of both cancers. While on sabbatical in the Carroll lab he is pursuing a better understanding of androgen receptor action in both breast and prostate cancer by using new genomic, proteomic and bioinformatics approaches developed by the Carroll lab. He convenes the PacRim Breast and Prostate Cancer meeting series and has a keen interest in wine!

Dr Theresa Hickey is interested in the role of the androgen receptor (AR) in the biology and pathology of female tissues. She received a PhD from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, in 2006 on the theme of AR action in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a common cause of female infertility and metabolic dysfunction that is associated with androgen excess. Dr Hickey did postdoctoral studies in the Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Research Laboratories at the University of Adelaide with research focussed on the role of AR in breast cancer (see a review by Hickey et al, Molecular Endocrinology, August 2012). Today she heads the Breast Cancer Research Group at the Dame Roma Laboratories and is currently a visiting scientist at Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Research Institute in the laboratory of Dr Jason Carroll, where she is engaged in exploring genome-wide AR binding events in different breast cancer contexts.

Andrew is a Senior Research Associate and Fellow of Downing College, Cambrige. Andrew is responsible for the experimental research programme of the Markowetz group and is working with the Carroll lab to obtain evidence on the dynamic nature of the oestrogen receptor in breast cancer tumour cells. This will provide the basis for the development of a quantitative model and facilitate our understanding of what drives this process. In the long term, the model could be used to predict the effects of perturbing components of the pathway with drugs and potentially lead to improved combinatorial treatment regimes.

Dr Luke Selth’s research interests are focussed on gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying prostate cancer progression and metastasis, with specific emphasis on the roles of the androgen receptor and microRNAs in these processes. He received his PhD from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, in 2005 and subsequently undertook post-doctoral studies at Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute at Clare Hall, where, under the guidance of Dr Jesper Svejstrup, he studied the mechanisms by which chromatin is modified to facilitate transcription elongation. He subsequently returned to Adelaide in 2009 and now is Head of Prostate Cancer Research at the Dame Roma Mitchell Cancer Research Laboratories at the University of Adelaide, working closely with Professor Wayne Tilley. Dr Selth is visiting Dr Jason Carroll’s laboratory from April-August 2016 on an Endeavour Research Fellowship: during this period, he will be exploring the function and clinical relevance of novel androgen receptor coregulators in advanced prostate cancer.

Dr Mohammad Asim’s is currently a university lecturer and a group leader (assistant professor) at the University of Surrey in the UK, his research interests are focussed on understanding the mechanisms by which androgen receptor drives prostate cancer progression, with specific emphasis on the roles of kinases and DNA damage response in these processes. Mohammad received his MSc from New Delhi in India and a PhD from the Justus Liebig University in Germany in Nov 2006. Following a 2-year postdoc in Wisconsin and in Dundee, in 2010, he joined Professor David Neal’s lab as a senior scientist at the Cancer research UK Cambridge Institute and led a small group within Prof. Neal’s team mentoring PhD, MBBS and M. Phil students. Subsequently he worked with Prof. John Griffiths and Dr. Jason Carroll until he was offered his tenured post at Surrey. In a landmark discovery they identified that kinases can have chaperone for nuclear receptors and are drug targets. His recent work identified the mechanisms by which prostate cancer becomes resistant to androgen deprivation therapy uncovering a novel synthetic lethality between androgen receptor and PAPR. He has maintained strong ties with the Carroll lab and currently works on projects involving hormone dependent cancers that are of common interest between the two labs.

Kelly obtained her undergraduate degree from Leeds University and her PhD with Prof. Wolf Reik at the Babraham Institute and University of Cambridge in 2006. She was a postdoc in the Carroll lab and is now the Principal scientific officer in the lab. Amongst other things, Kelly is developing drugs against ER regulatory factors.

Rosalind has a degree in Human Biology from Oxford Brookes University and an MSc in Reproductive biology from the University of Edinburgh.  She has worked as a Scientific Officer in the Carroll lab for just over 2 years, managing the lab and carrying out experimental work for collaborative projects.

Gord began his career as a programmer when Fortran was still cool and the Internet hadn't been invented yet.  He moved into computational biology in 1998, and now spends his time striving to transmute the base metal of high-throughput sequencing data into research gold.

Toni’s work has been centered on the study of hormone-dependent cancer. In his Masters degree he studied the effects of dietary factors in breast cancer initiation and progression at Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). His PhD was conducted at the Vall-Hebron Research Institute of Barcelona (Spain). Toni was a postdoc in the Carroll lab from 2007-2011 and is now an independent group leader at the Norwegian Centre of Molecular Medicine (NCMM-EMBL).

Vasiliki (Vasso) completed her undergraduate degree at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and her PhD with Dr. John Hilkens, NKI, Amsterdam in 2007. She joined the Carroll lab as a postdoc in 2007 and she is interested in understanding how ER associated factors, particularly GATA3, impact ER biology and tumour outcome in breast cancer.

Aisling completed her undergraduate degree from Trinity College Dublin in 1999.  After three years pursuing non-scientific interests she saw the light again and returned to postgraduate studies at Dublin City University for her PhD. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.  Aisling was awarded an IRCSET Inspire Marie Curie Fellowship to join the Carroll lab at the end of 2009 and has been examining the role of a number of chromatin proteins in estrogen receptor driven breast cancer. 

Aurelien conducted his PhD with Dr. Jerome Eeckhoute and Dr. Raphael Metivier at the University of Rennes 1, France. He joined the Carroll lab as a postdoc in January 2012. He is currently working on transcription factors implicated in breast cancer.

Jess completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Medical Biochemistry at University of Leeds. She spent time in the sunshine at the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida with Dr Elliot Richeslon and then Dr Evette Radisky. In 2009, Jess joined Cancer Research UK as a PhD student in the laboratories of Dr Jason Carroll and Professor David Neal. She is studying the dynamic crosstalk between the androgen receptor and estrogen receptor in breast cancer.  

Hisham is from Kerela, India. He did his undergraduate training in Bangalore, India and then moved to Dundee to do an Msc in biotechnology. He then worked with Prof. Gill Murphy's group at the CRUK, before joining the Carroll group for his PhD. He is currently focusing on developing methods to integrate high throughput sequencing and proteomics approaches to study transcription factor complexes.  Hisham has moved on to Wolf Reik's lab at the Babraham Institute, and can be reached at Hisham.Mohammed@babraham.ac.uk.

Kamila obtained her B.Sc in biotechnology from the University of Warsaw, Poland. Following this, she did research projects and courses at Cambridge, Oxford, Aarhus and Harvard. Kamila then did a MPhil in Biological Sciences in Cambridge in Prof Steve Jackson’s lab. Her research interests are still evolving but include mechanisms of cancer (Estrogen Receptor transcription  specifically) and interdisciplinary approaches for understanding neuroscience. She is interested in travelling, piano, dance and whatever moves her.

Kam is a medical oncology trainee in Cambridge. His goal is to learn scientific methodology and understand cancer biology, in order to solve clinical challenges that he sees in oncology clinics. His aim is to be able to introduce novel therapeutics to cancer patients through hypothesis-driven clinical trials.

Wilbert is a dutch scientist who obtained his PhD with Prof. Rob Michalides at the NKI, Amsterdam. Wilbert joined the Carroll lab as a postdoc from 2009-2011 and has moved back to Amsterdam to run his own research lab at the NKI. His interest is in the genomic and molecular understanding of breast cancer and drug resistance.

Caryn is from the sunny shores of Cape Town, South Africa.  She did her undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town (UCT), specialising in biochemistry and microbiology and her honours and masters degree at UCT.  In 2007 she was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship for her PhD studies and joined the laboratories of Jason Carroll and Duncan Odom.  Following graduation, Caryn joined Dr Rebecca Fitzgerald’s lab for a postdoc in Cambridge.

Dominic graduated from the Freie Universität Berlin in 2007 and did his
German Biochemistry Diplom Degree Thesis at the Max Planck Institute for
Molecular Genetics (Berlin, Germany). Currently, he is reading for a PhD at the University of Cambridge in Duncan Odom's and Jason Carroll's lab. His research is focused on transcriptional regulation and genome evolution. Dominic is a member of Darwin College and enjoys rowing in his free time with the Cantabrigian Rowing Club.

Stacey completed her BA and BSc (Hons) degrees at Monash University. She then worked as a Research Officer for several years at Imperial College London. Stacey returned to Melbourne in 2007 to pursue a PhD under the supervision of Professor Peter Fuller at Prince Henry’s Institute of Medical Research. She joined the Carroll lab as a postdoc in March 2012. Her research interests lie in understanding the molecular mechanisms that contribute to the development of endocrine-related cancers.

Adam is a registrar in urological surgery. He completed his medical training and MRes in Biomedical and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow before moving to Cambridge to pursue surgical training. He is currently working in the Carroll lab and Academic Urology Group, University of Cambridge to investigate the role and mechanisms of the estrogen receptor in the development and progression of prostate cancer.

My undergraduate years were spent in the University of Nottingham Medical School where I undertook my Bachelors in Medical Science and Bachelors in Medicine and Surgery, as well as gaining my membership to the Royal College of Surgeons. In Cambridge, I am an honorary urology speciality trainee at registrar level doing my PhD funded by the Medical Research Council on their Clinical Research Training Fellowship scheme. I have a keen interest in diagnostic urology and my academic research focuses on a potential novel blood marker of prostate cancer.

I hold a Bachelors degree in Microbiology and Masters degree in Biotechnology. I have been working in the Carroll group since April 2014 as a research assistant, managing the lab and carrying out experimental work on ongoing projects in the lab, as well as collaborative projects with other groups.

Sarah obtained her B.Sc. in molecular cell biology from the University of Heidelberg. During this time, she became fascinated by cancer biology and decided to learn more about this topic during her master’s studies, which she completed at the German Cancer Research Centre. In 2011, she started her PhD at the Cambridge Research Institute. Sarah is interested in identifying kinases that could potentially serve as therapeutic targets in prostate cancer, and in understanding how they contribute to tumour development and progression.

Rasmus is from a small Danish island called Funen. He obtained his PhD in the lab of Susanne Mandrup at the University of Southern Denmark in 2012, where he stayed on as a postdoc. In 2015, he received a Novo Nordisk Foundation postdoc fellowship to join the Carroll lab. His main research interest is ER function in advanced stages of breast cancer, e.g. endocrine-resistance and metastasis.