Welcome to our Lab
We focus on improving outcomes in the treatment of gastric and esophageal cancers, as well as on the basic mechanisms involved in resistance to neoadjuvant/adjuvant therapy and the development of model systems/tumour avatars to investigate and identify clinically useful approaches to abrogate such resistance. We are involved with several large team projects, including studies funded by the Cancer Research UK Grand Challenge and Marathon of Hope mechanisms.
The Visionary Behind Our Project
Research Interests
- Basic Research:
- Influence of Systemic Inflammation in Cancer Metastasis
- Toll like receptor host/cancer cell signaling in cancer metastasis
- Neutrophil facilitated cancer progression
- Molecular Determinants of Gastric/Esophageal Cancer
- Discovery of putative driver variants
- Molecular determinants of peritoneal metastasis
- Mechanisms of Therapy Resistance in Esophageal Adenocarcinoma
- Chronic Inflammation Associated Cancers – Pathogenesis of GERD mediated Barrett’s adenocarcinoma
- Modelling Cancer – organoids and organ chip
- Influence of Systemic Inflammation in Cancer Metastasis
- Clinical Research:
- Clinical Chemotherapy Trials for Thoracic Malignancies
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy–gastric and esophageal cancer
- Adjuvant chemotherapy–lung cancer
- Effect of Pre-operative Rehabilitation on Complications Following Lung Surgery
- Laparoscopic Surgery for Benign Esophageal Disease-Outcome Measures
- Treatment of Esophageal Cancer–Outcome Measures
- Enhanced Recovery Programsin Thoracic Oncology Surgery
- Clinical Chemotherapy Trials for Thoracic Malignancies
Research Expertise
Cancer Diagnosis and Detection, Cancer of the Digestive System, Cell Therapy of Cancer, Host-Tumour Interaction, Lung Cancer
Most Significant Contributions
Optimizing Multimodal Therapy in Esophageal and Gastric Cancer: I published the first prospective trial employing docetaxel in the neoadjuvant setting for gastro-esophageal adenocarcinoma GEA (Ferri et al 2012), with several subsequent manuscripts on this topic (Alcindor et al, 2013, Sudarshan et al, 2015, Cools-Lartigue et al 2015, Al-Fakeeh et al 2016). Due in part to my work, docetaxel-based triplet therapy has now become the global standard of care for neoadjuvant therapy in GEA, and I have been invited speaker to over 30 universities and oncology/surgery meetings (US, Canada, Europe, South America, Asia) to discuss neoadjuvant therapies in GEA. This background is highly pertinent to the present proposal examining chemotherapy resistance in GEA. More recently I have been awarded a Department of Defense Impact Grant to study the role of tumour stroma in determine GEA response to therapy as well as a large CCS/CIHR breakthrough grant on this topic.
Inflammatory basis of GEA progression and metastasis: I have held three consecutive CIHR grants investigating the role of inflammation in both carcinogenesis and cancer progression. I have published extensively, mainly in high impact journals, on the cross talk between cancer cells and either bacteria antigens (Hsu et al, Cancer Res 201, Rousseau et al, Surgery 2013, Chow et al, Int J Cancer 2014, Gowing et al, Int J Cancer 2017, Gowing et al, J Thorac Oncol 2019) or neutrophils (MacDonald et al, Int J Cancer 2009, Spicer et al, Cancer Res 2012, Cools-Lartigue et al, JCI 2013, Cools-Lartigue et al, Cell Mol Life Sci 2014, Najmeh et al Int J Cancer 2017, Reyes et al JCI Insight 2019, Reyes et al J Immunol 2020). More recently my laboratory has been involved in identifying the molecular determinants of GEA progression, and I am presently funded by two grants in this area including a Cancer Research UK Grand Challenge (STORMing Cancer – £20,000,000/5yrs) for which I am Lead Investigator of Work Package 1. This latter grant, investigating the inflammatory bases of GEA carcinogenesis, deals with many technical protocols similar to those detailed in the present proposal (e.g. organoids derived from endoscopic biopsies, single cell RNA sequencing).
