Professor Margaret Anne Knowles

Profile

I lead the Urothelial Cancers group in Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's. I studied for a first degree in Microbiology in Bristol followed by a PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK London Research Institute), where my interest in epithelial cancer development was established. After a period of Postdoctoral research at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School working on human and rodent models for bladder cancer I moved to set up my own group at the Marie Curie Research Institute in Surrey where my focus moved to the molecular features of human bladder cancer. I have continued molecular studies of bladder cancer in Leeds since 1997.

Research interests

We focus on the molecular features of urothelial carcinoma of the bladder with the goal of translating this information into clinical benefit. A range of genomic and transcriptomic approaches are used to identify mutations, DNA copy number alterations and expression changes that can improve tumour classification at diagnosis, provide prognostic and/or predictive biomarkers and suggest new approaches to therapy. A major current focus is on non-invasive bladder cancers. We use tumour cells and normal urothelial cells to study the function of key genes and we are developing relevant preclinical models through sequential manipulation of normal human urothelial cells.

Qualifications

• PhD, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London
• BSc Microbiology, University of Bristol

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's