At the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Professor Lesley Stark talks about the challenges of being diagnosed with cancer while working in cancer research. Lesley, a professor at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer specialising in colon cancer,  was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023. When she was due to attend a routine mammogram […]

A new research project at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer aims to tackle the poor response of immune-cold colorectal cancers to immunotherapies. Immune-cold tumours are those which don’t trigger a strong immune response and therefore don’t respond well to these therapies. Dr Kevin Myant, who has been awarded a Discovery Programme Foundation Award of […]

Dr Chris Boyd, Institute of Genetics and Cancer Can you explain in lay terms what cystic fibrosis is and how many people it affects? Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-limiting genetic disease affecting people inheriting bad mutations (DNA mistakes) in both copies of a gene called CFTR. Their cells cannot produce normal CFTR protein which […]

By Dr Debora Bogani, Head of Scientific Communications at the Mary Lyon Centre at MRC Harwell and MRC National Mouse Genetics Network (originally posted on the MRC National Mouse Genetics Network) Celebrating Research Specialists: Driving Innovation in Mouse Genetics Research specialists are often the unsung heroes in biomedical research groups, providing continuity in long-term research […]

By Sara Brown, Grant Chair of Dermatology and Section Head of Genetic and Experimental Medicine at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer Eczema is an itchy, inflammatory skin condition that can affect every aspect of a person’s life, health and wellbeing. But people living with eczema report feeling that their experiences are not well understood and […]

By Emma Hall, Research Fellow at IGC How we communicate our science is rapidly evolving. With the recent launch of openRxiv, a new non-profit home for preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv, the IGC Research Culture Group is thrilled to host co-founder Richard Sever at the IGC on Friday 28 March at 11am. Marking the next chapter […]

By Professor Lesley Stark, Personal Chair of Nucleolar Signalling and Cancer Prevention at IGC Prevention is better than cure is certainly the case for cancer, and especially colorectal cancer. My journey into the prevention of colorectal cancer started in 1997 as a young postdoctoral scientist, under the wing of Malcolm Dunlop. The pathway I was […]

For International Women’s Day, IGC Bioinformatics Analysis Core Manager Dr Jing Su talks about her career and experience as a female leader. I come from China and was born and raised in Beijing, a city rich in history and heritage. Growing up in the capital, I was surrounded by centuries-old landmarks, with the Forbidden City […]

Image: Brothers Benjamin, seven, and Gabriel, three, both have ATR-X syndrome By Rebekah Tillotson, Chancellor’s Fellow at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer With Ben Harris and Jennifer Martinez-Harris, ATRX Research Alliance (a parent-led global group of families committed to accelerating research) ATR-X (Alpha-thalassemia X-linked intellectual disability) syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that affects […]

As a young girl growing up in the Palestinian city of Qalqilya in the West Bank, Roza Masalmeh always remembers wanting to do something related to science. “I loved science,” says Roza, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer. “I wanted to be an inventor or discoverer. I was always doing […]