CV

Education

• B.S. in Genetics, University of Leeds, 2003
• M.Res. in Bioinformatics, University of Leeds, 2004
• Ph.D in Medicine and Health (Computational Biology), University of Leeds, 2015

Professional positions

• May 2023 - present
  • Consultant, Biomarker Strategy
• October 2022 - May 2023
  • Director, Translational Oncology, Immuno-oncology start-up in stealth
• February 2019-September 2022
  • Director, Head of Translational Medicine at Revolution Medicines
• February 2005-June 2015
  • Clinical scientist in cytogenetics
  • Lead in research development

Research experience

School of Public Health, UC Berkeley (Nov 2017 – February 2019). Advisors Dr. Stephen Rappaport and Dr. Sandrine Dudoit

• Development of bioinformatic and statistical pipelines of LC-MS data for adductomics and metabolomics for cancer specimens.

Department of Neurological Surgery, UCSF (Oct 2015 – Nov 2017). Advisor Dr. Joseph Costello.

• Identification of tumor –associated neoantigens in low-grade glioma in collaboration with Dr. Hideho Okada, UCSF. NCI-funded P01 project.
• Design of a targeted glioblastoma screen for TERT-interacting proteins in vivo. Collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Doudna, UC Berkeley.
• Demonstrated the presence of novel perivascular cancer-associated fibroblasts in glioma. Manuscript expected 2018 (first author).
• Revealed a multiverse model of tumor evolution in IDH-mutated multicentric glioma, published in Neuro-oncology, 2017.
• Discovery that mutant IDH1 can be lost during malignant progression. Published in PNAS 2017. R01-funded project.
• Identification of the reversal of replicative immortality in TERT promoter-mutant glioblastoma by reduction of a GABP isoform. Manuscript under revisions (co-author).

Leeds Institute of Cancer and Pathology, University of Leeds (Oct 2012 – Sept 2015). This work was funded through a Yorkshire Cancer Research fellowship. Advisors Dr. David Westhead and Dr. Susan Short. External advisor Dr. Sean Lawler, Harvard Medical School.

• Prediction of prognosis and drug response using MicroRNAs in brain tumors. Two first author publications in Molecular Oncology 2014 and 2016.
• Discovered that the close alignment of glioblastoma gene expression patterns to oligodendrocyte precursors results in poor outcome. First author publication in OncoScience, 2014.
• Design and execution of an in vitro screen of microRNAs associated with survival and migration in glioblastoma. Manuscript in preparation (co-author).

Translational Genomics Unit, University of Leeds (2010-2015). Advisor Dr. Graham Taylor.

• Next generation sequencing pipeline (bioinformatics and wet-lab) for the detection of copy number changes in patients with learning difficulties. Publication in Genomics, 2012. This resulted in a diagnostic service to the patients of Yorkshire, UK.
• Detection of EGFR mutations and ALK rearrangements in non-small cell lung cancer. This resulted in a diagnostic service to the patients of Yorkshire, UK.

Yorkshire Regional Genetics Laboratory and Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, St James’s University Hospital (2005-2010)

• Bleomycin as an alternative to irradiation for the diagnosis of Ataxia Telangiectasia. This resulted in a diagnostic service to the patients of Yorkshire, UK.
• Cytogenetic changes of Ewing’s Sarcoma cell lines in culture Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds (2002-2004)
• Identification of genes involved in arginine catabolism in Streptomyces coelicolor (2004). Advisor Dr. Simon Baumberg. Funded through a UK Medical Research Council Studentship.
• Genetics of susceptibility to Leprosy- genetic linkage analysis using bioinformatics (2003). Advisor Dr. Marie-Anne Shaw.
• Construction of promoter:reporter gene fusions in Caenorhabditis elegans. Publication in Genome Research (2002). Advisor Dr. Ian Hope.

Funding

Contributions to ongoing funded research

• Project: How mutations and their distribution throughout hypermutated gliomas shape the intratumoral immune response. Principal investigator Joseph Costello, PhD. R01 grant $499,000 submitted April 2017. I provided preliminary data, developed one of the aims and assisted in writing the grant.

Past funding

• Yorkshire Cancer Research PhD fellowship 2012-2015
• European Association of Cancer Research fellowship for six months of study at Harvard Medical School June 2014
• Medical Research Council Masters student fellowship 2003-2004

Awards

• Guarantors of Brain travel award to present at the 19th Annual Scientific Meeting and Education Day of the Society for Neuro-Oncology, Miami, 2014
• YCR travel award to present at the 4th Quadrennial meeting of the World Federation of Neuro-oncology, San Francisco, November 2013
• ACC travel award to present at Non-coding RNAs in development and disease, Vancouver, Canada, 2013
• BSHG travel award to present at EANO-ESMO-EORTC 2013 in Prague
• BSCB travel award to present at BNOS 2013 conference in Durham UK

Teaching

• Lectures for Genetics Technologists, Yorkshire Regional Cytogenetics Laboratory 2008-2012 Laboratory/bioinformatics Supervision
• Clinical Scientist training, 2011-2012. Mentor for two six-month projects for the introduction of diagnostic EGFR mutation and ALK rearrangement testing for Non-small cell lung cancer.
• Clinical Scientist training, 2012. Mentor for a six-month project for the transition of copy number variant testing from microarray to next-generation sequencing.
• Genetic technologist training of tissue cell culture for diagnostic aneuploidy assessment.

Additional relevant activities

• Bioinformatics experience - Large dataset analyses of sequencing data, such as: RNA-seq, microarray, DNA methylation, small RNA-seq, copy number variation, fusion detection, single-cell sequencing. Tools: Bedtools, Samtools, TopHat, Cufflinks, cutadapt, trimGalore, Kallisto and more.
• Programming experience - R (strong bkgd), Perl, Python, Linux/Bash (strong bkgd)
• Data Science tools - AWS, Rmarkdown, shiny, mySQL, Spotfire
• Laboratory experience - library preparation, karyotyping, FISH, laser microdissection, cell culture and transfection, q-PCR, western blot, GFP reporter assays, cloning, and more.
• Management of the Leeds Clinical Genetics Departmental Website at St James’s Hospital, UK 2005-2012
• Collator of information for the UK Down Syndrome Registry 2005-2010

Memberships (Last five years)

• Association of Clinical Scientists (ACC)
• British Society of Human Genetics (BSHG)
• British Association of Cancer Research (BACR)
• European Association of Cancer Research (EACR)
• British Society of Cell Biologists (BSCB)