Current research

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Liver cancer is amongst the less survivable cancers, and outcomes have not improved at the same pace seen in other cancer types. A large part of this problem is that liver cancer is typically only caught at later stages, where treatment options are more limited and the odds of survival are low. Earlier detection will give more people the best chance of beating their cancer.

The major bottlenecks are twofold. Firstly, because liver disease is broadly asymptomatic until very advanced stages, people are unknowingly living with liver disease for long periods of time, increasing their risk of developing irreversible liver damage and cancer. Secondly, even when we have identified people with liver disease and a high risk of developing liver cancer, the tools we can use to try and monitor for that cancer perform very poorly at detecting early tumours. 

To develop new tools, we need a better understanding of how liver disease progresses and how the changes within the liver environment encourage the development of cancerous cell behaviour. To this end I am leveraging insights from mouse models of cancer development and preliminary work in human tissue to define and leverage early features of liver cancer as biomarkers that can predict cancer development in people. 

Working alongside collaborators across the International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection I will use cutting edge spatial omics technology on historic tissue from patients who are known to have later developed cancer, or remained cancer free, to define potential early warning signs of liver cancer