The VISION Laboratory, led by Sarah Bohndiek, operates jointly between the Department of Physics and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUK CI). Dr Bohndiek and Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald lead the Cambridge Cancer Centre's Early Detection Programme.
In the physics laboratory, Dr Bohndiek's group develops and validates new imaging technologies, currently concentrating on signal excitation in the visible and near infrared, and aiming to produce hyperspectral imaging methods with high sensitivity and specificity for clinical translation.
In the CRUK CI laboratory, researchers combine these new developments in molecular imaging with preclinical disease models to better understand cancer therapy response and drug resistance. In particular, they are interested in the role of oxygen, including the presence, absence and metabolism of oxygen in tumor cells and surrounding blood vessels.
Oxidative stress and metabolic alterations derived from inflammation and tumour growth lead to hypoxia and angiogenesis in cancer and are associated with disease aggressiveness as well as the evolution of drug resistance.
The interplay between blood oxygenation, tumour hypoxia and oxidative stress has yet to be fully understood. Furthermore, there are few validated, noninvasive methods to detect their spatiotemporal distribution. Without these tools, the impact of this interplay on tumour biology cannot be studied.
To overcome this limitation and help to elucidate the role of oxygen in cancer, the VISION Lab research aims to validate and apply novel imaging methods to study oxygen delivery and utilization in preclinical models and in patients.
In addition to her position as a group leader at CRUK CI, Bohndiek is a Fellow at Corpus Christi College, and University Lecturer in Biological/Biomedical Physics, Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
Previously she was a postdoctoral scholar in the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford University, from 2011-2013, and a postdoctoral research fellow, in the Department of Biochemistry and Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, from 2008-2011. She received her PhD in Radiation Physics from the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at University College London in 2008.
