Genetics

Immunology

Skin cancer & Checkpoint Immunotherapy

Fairfax lab members will present at ESMO 2024

I work in the Oxford Cancer Centre to provide care for patients with skin cancer and run a group based at the Weatherall Institute for Molecular Medicine that seeks to understand variation between patient outcomes to immunotherapy.

We are especially interested in understanding how patient genetics and environmental exposures shape treatment outcomes. Knowledge of these can provide an unbiased picture into immune pathways that may form targets for new cancer therapies, as well as help make our current medications more personalised. 

How we vary between one another in our genetic code has a critical impact on events throughout our lives that our influenced by our immune system. Whilst we most think of genetic variation influencing our susceptibility to infection, it is increasingly clear that small genetic changes can influence individual patient's ability to respond to cancer immunotherapy - in terms of both cancer shrinking, but also the development of side effects from treatment - so called 'immune related Adverse Events' (irAEs).  

My group has recently demonstrated that, in addition to patient and tumour genetics, past exposure to a common chronic virus called Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which is roughly carried by about half the people in the UK, can alter patient immune responses to cancer immunotherapy,  impacting the development of irAEs and long-term clinical outcomes.  Furthermore, we have intriguing evidence that whether a person has HCMV can interact with the likelihood of them developing melanoma, especially that which has spread around their body, indicating the development of skin cancer is complex and multifactorial.

 For a full list of my work:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d6N18F8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

I did my PhD at the MRC-LMCB, UCL completing this in 2003 and then completed my clinical training in Oxford.

I was accepted onto the Oxford Academic Foundation programme and, having become interested in human genetics, took time away from clinical training to gain postdoctoral experience. I was awarded a Wellcome MB-PhD postdoctoral Fellowship and I did this in Julian Knight's group at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics. 

Upon completion of this I specialised in Medical Oncology. I see skin cancer patients as  a Consultant in the Oxford Cancer Centre. I am co-lead for the immunotherapy workstream of the NIHR Oncology Translational Research Group and I was made a full Professor in 2023.

Sara Danielli, Research Assistant - Completed a DPhil with Jelena Mirkovic at the Kennedy Institute, Oxford.

Alba Verge de los Aires, Research assistant

Alba was a  in the group from November 2019- late 2021. She has extensive experience in numerous immunological techniques, having previously worked at the Institut Necker-Enfants Malades in Paris where she worked on B cell subsets. Alba was a key figure for the group, preparing samples, organising the group and playing a key role in experimental success. She has now returned tolive with  her family in Barcelona.