The CRUK Convergence Science Centre is a partnership between Imperial College London and The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). We aim to bring together researchers from different disciplines across both institutions to develop innovative ways to address challenges in cancer research to benefit patients.
This seminar series brings together speakers from Imperial and ICR to present their research and how they use convergence science to answer cancer-related questions.
Speakers
Tamas Korcsmaros, Senior Lecturer in Intestinal Epithelial Biology and Lead of the NIHR Imperial BRC Organoid Facility
As a PhD student, Tamas developed a signalling network database, SignaLink, which filled a vital niche in the landscape of bioinformatics tools, and by now it has become one of the most used signalling network resources for human and model organism studies. It also forms the core of OmniPath, a more general human signalling network resource Tamas co-developed with the group of Julio Saez-Rodriguez. In 2014, Tamas received a special 5-year BBSRC fellowship to work in the computational biology and sequencing focused Earlham Institute and in the gut microbiome centred Quadram Institute at the Norwich Research Park. This fellowship allowed him to establish a multi-disciplinary group that combines computational and experimental approaches, including gut organoids. In 2019, he was appointed as a Tenure-track group leader at the Earlham and the Quadram Institutes. His group has carried out multiple projects to predict, analyse and validate host-microbe interactions in the gut, especially in relation to the regulation of autophagy by microbes and upon disease conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and cancer. He had multiple innovation and industrial partnership projects to develop new computational tools and platforms to analyse multi-omics data. End of 2021, Tamas moved to Imperial College as a Senior Lecturer, and currently leads both a research group that focuses on improving our understanding on the pathomechanisms of IBD and the NIHR Imperial BRC Organoid Facility to establish patient-specific multi-omics studies for various complex diseases. Further details: http://KorcsmarosLab.org
Dr. Sudeep Bhushal, CRUK Convergence Science Centre
“3D organoid culture : A new window into development and disease”
Organoids are in-vitro 3D cellular models derived from primary tissue or stem cells that faithfully recapitulate key elements of the tissue of origin. Organoids are revolutionizing in vitro cell culture as they are accessible, physiologically relevant, and stable system for extended cultivation. However, there are several factors that still restricting their widespread application as novel models for cancer research.In this talk, I will elaborate on the CRUK Organoid Facility and Biobank’s aim to develop new methodologies and technologies to maximise the potential of organoids for cancer research via interdisciplinary, cross-institution, collaborations.
Sudeep is a Senior Scientific Officer at ICR as part of CRUK Convergence Science Centre. He is an expert in organoid derivation from tissues and provides on-site training for scientists and clinicians using organoid system for the first time.
Who can attend?
Researchers, students and anyone with an interest in convergence science relating to cancer research across Imperial and ICR are welcome to register.
If you are not associated with Imperial or ICR but would like to attend, please email icr-imperial-convergence.centre@imperial.ac.uk.