LIMR HAIM NEWS PEOPLE

HAIM researchers include academic staff, postdoctoral researchers, techical support staff, PhD students, Clinical Fellows, MSc or MRes students and visiting scientists. Find out more about our staff below.

This year seven students from MSc Molecular Medicine and MSc Cancer Biology and Therapy cohort have selected research projects supervised by HAIM academics. Welcome!! We wish you every success with your projects.

You can read more about their projects below.

 

Pictured left to right: Muskaan Bohra, Isabella Atteck, Catriona Cunningham, Maria Burr, Tilly Cast, Kieran Bacalando and Tamzin Brown.

Isabella Atteck

Supervisor: Dr Salvatore Papa

Title: The Regulation of Metabolism on Drug Response in Multiple Myeloma.

Summary: This project investigates how the reprogramming of metabolic pathways influences drug response in multiple myeloma. Resistance to chemotherapy remains a major challenge in cancer treatment, and altered metabolism is increasingly recognized as a key contributor to this process. The study aims to evaluate potential therapeutic agents targeting specific metabolic pathways and determine how its targeting enhance drug sensitivity in myeloma cells. Using molecular and biochemical approaches, metabolic pathways will be modulated to assess its effects on drug sensitivity, alongside evaluating candidate therapeutic agents to identify new strategies to overcome treatment resistance.

Tilly Cast

Supervisor: Prof Ulf Klein

Title: Exploring CD8+ T cell Biology in Multiple Myeloma for Improving Immunotherapy

Summary: This project investigates how the cytokine IL-27 modulates CD8+ T cell function in multiple myeloma, a disease characterised by immune dysfunction and therapeutic resistance. Given the reliance of modern immunotherapies on effective cytotoxic T cells, the study focuses on whether IL-27 can enhance CD8+ T cell activation, cytokine production, and cytotoxic capacity, while limiting features of T cell exhaustion. The project aims to investigate the extent to which IL-27 modulates the functional properties of CD8+ T cells, including cytokine responsiveness and production and cytotoxic activity, and to determine whether IL-27 influences molecular features associated with T cell exhaustion in myeloma cells, as has been described for CD8+ T cells in solid tumours.

Kieran Bacalando

Supervisor: Prof Reuben Tooze

Title: Built to Protect: How Plasma Cells Organise Themselves to Make Antibodies and How This May Go Wrong

Summary: Immunity to infection depends on production of antibodies that protect from disease. Antibodies are produced by specialised antibody-secreting plasma cells that are generated from B-cells. We don’t know how these plasma cells organise their own structure to become an efficient antibody factory, however the centrosome acts as a structural organising centre in other cell types. This project aims to understand the role of the centrosome in the formation and the function of plasma cells. Exploring this fundamental question may also elucidate how centrosome errors contribute to the generation of malignancies such as multiple myeloma.

Tamzin Brown

Supervisor: Dr Gina Doody

Title: MMSET Overdrive: Engineering Plasma Cell Transformation in a Myeloma Model.

Summary: MMSET, also known as NSD2, is a histone-modifying enzyme that is overexpressed in a subset of multiple myeloma cases, resulting in aberrant expression of cell growth and survival genes. This project aims to investigate the effect of NSD2 in the development and function of plasma cells, by culturing and differentiating B cells to generate mature plasma cells, following introduction of NSD2 early in this process. I will then use flow cytometry, ELISAs and western blots to determine the significance of NSD2 expression in differentiating B cells.

Catriona Cunningham

Supervisor: Dr Alison Taylor

Title: The effects of GSK-3 inhibition on Natural Killer cell activity and degranulation

Summary: GSK-3 is a serine/ threonine kinase that regulates multiple oncogenic and immune signalling pathways. Although inhibition of GSK-3 has been shown to enhance T-cell-mediated anti-tumour responses, its effects on natural killer (NK) cells remain comparatively unexplored. Therefore, this project aims to investigate the effects of GSK-3 inhibition on NK-cell activity, specifically activation and degranulation. Improving the understanding of how GSK-3 regulates NK-cell function will help clarify the potential of GSK-3 inhibitors as an immunotherapy in cancer.

Muskaan Bohra

Supervisor: Dr Robert Salmond

Title: Targeting tyrosine phosphatase in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

 Summary: This project investigates the role of the protein tyrosine phosphatase SHP2 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its potential as a therapeutic target. HCC is a highly aggressive liver cancer with limited treatment success due to tumour progression and immune suppression within the tumour microenvironment. The study aims to determine how SHP2 inhibition affects both tumour cell growth and anti-tumour immune responses. Murine and human HCC cell lines alongside T cell activation models, molecular and biochemical approaches will be used to evaluate the effects of SHP2 inhibitors on cancer cell proliferation, cytokine production, and immune signalling. The findings may identify new therapeutic strategies that combine SHP2 inhibition with immunotherapy to improve treatment responses in HCC. 

Maria Burr

Title: Development of Immune Cell Engagers for Ewing Sarcoma Immunotherapy.

Supervisor: Dr Fiona Errington-Mais and Dr Richard Baugh

Summary: Ewing Sarcoma is a rare paediatric bone and soft-tissue cancer with poor outcomes for patients with metastatic or relapsed disease. Existing immunotherapies have shown limited success, largely due to Ewing Sarcoma’s immunologically ‘cold’ microenvironment, which fails to generate an effective anti-tumour immune response. This project aims to investigate immune cell engagers (ICEs) that recognise CD3 on T cells and a tumour-associated antigen on Ewing Sarcoma cells, thereby physically bringing them together and stimulating T-cell-mediated killing independent of T-cell specificity. Using flow cytometry to analyse T-cell activation markers and tumour-cell viability, the aim is to evaluate the therapeutic potential of ICEs in Ewing Sarcoma.