My research focuses on oesophageal adenocarcinoma and its precancerous lesion Barrett’s oesophagus, and it is built around two key interactive directions:
1) establishment of patient and disease-free organ donor derived in vitro organoid and co-culture models, to modulate the initiation and development of Barrett’s oesophagus and its progression towards oesophageal adenocarcinoma, and investigate the heterogenous and dynamic genomic landscapes in the context of microenvironment (niche factors, disease related refluxate and local inflammation), as well as drug treatment (targeted or immune therapies);
2) using state-of-the-art multiplex imaging technology and machine-learning computational approaches to profile a detailed ‘atlas’ of immune and stromal cells directly on patient tissue sections, and characterize their cell density, composition and spatial correlation in the disease progression and/or under treatment.
These studies laid the groundwork for complex in vitro patient cell models and multiplex imaging pipelines, which pave a way for better prediction and prevention, as well as future personalised therapies to treat and/or manage cancer.