Are you interested in cancer immunology and cutting-edge genomics/transcriptomics? Do you want to pursue a PhD in an environment supported by a supervisory team including immunologists (Lagos, Kourtzelis), clinical oncologists (Vasudev), and industry experts (Turner)? If yes, this is the perfect opportunity for you.
You will use the remarkable power of the long-read sequencing platforms developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT), the project’s iCASE partner and pioneers in long-read and direct RNA sequencing, to explore and rediscover immune gene expression landscapes in kidney cancer. This will be a vehicle to transforming our understanding of cancer immunology, for example through identifying immune transcripts associated with disease relapse or response to treatment.
Here is the challenge this PhD will aim to address: The clinical use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has been transformative in oncology, but significant challenges remain, including lack of response by a substantial number of patients. Long-read and direct RNA sequencing methodologies are currently at the cutting-edge of clinical cancer research thanks to their superiority in assessing alternative transcript and 3’UTR usage, poly-A length and post-transcriptional RNA modifications (e.g. RNA methylation), all at single transcript resolution from the same sequencing run.
