Tell us about yourself and where you work.
I am a clinical doctor in Oxford undertaking specialty training in liver and gut disease (Gastroenterology and Hepatology).
Tell us a little about your research.
Liver cancer is increasing, with around 500,000 new cases occurring a year worldwide. Usually, cancer occurs in people with scarred livers. However, a growing number of people are developing liver cancer even though their liver is not scarred.
The body’s defence (immune) system is important in controlling cancer. Immune cells can recognise cancer cells and destroy them. In patients with liver scarring that develop cancer there are immune cells in the blood that react to liver cancer proteins. These might be good targets for a vaccine. However, we do not know if such cells exist in patients without liver scarring that develop cancer, something we aim to assess.
What are the potential implications of this work for patients?
I hope that by understanding the immune response to liver cancer better, this will lead to new tests to detect cancer at earlier stages when it is curable and develop vaccines to prevent cancer developing.
What do you think are the major obstacles for the cancer field to overcome in the next 10 years?
Of those without liver scarring who develop Liver cancer, some have fat in the liver, but others have a normal liver. We do not understand why this happens and who is at risk. One of the biggest challenges over the next 10 years will be to understand why people without liver scarring develop liver cancer, so that we can develop ways to screen for it and diagnose it earlier.
What does Oxford Cancer and OCION mean for you and your research?
Oxford Cancer provide a research community in which doctors and scientists researching different types of cancer can share expertise, resources and data to further our research into combatting cancer together. Receipt of this OCION funding award will allow us to make some important first steps in developing a vaccine to prevent liver cancer in the future. I would also like to thank the NIHR Oxford BRC for supporting this cancer vaccine project.