Converging on Cancer Seminar Series – Prof Trevor Graham and Dr Rachael Barry

2 Oct 2025, 15:00 PM

We invite you to join us for our internal Converging on Cancer online seminar on Thursday 2nd October, 3-4 PM (GMT).

The CRUK Convergence Science Centre is a partnership between Imperial College London and The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). We aim to bring together researchers from different disciplines across both institutions to develop innovative ways to address challenges in cancer research to benefit patients.

The Centre's Converging on Cancer seminar series brings together speakers from Imperial and ICR to present their research and how they use convergence science to answer cancer-related questions.

Thursday 2nd October, 3-4pm (GMT)

This session will focus on how convergence science is used to predict the trajectory of cancer even before emergence or resistance occurs, and will be chaired by Prof Anguraj Sadanandam, Systems and Precision Cancer Medicine Group Leader at the ICR.

Prof Trevor Graham

Tracking cancer evolution at clinical scale with fluctuating methylation

Cancers evolve. Current methods to measure evolutionary dynamics rely on genome sequencing of multiple samples from each tumour to detect subclonal mutations and using them to perform phylogenetic tree inference. In this talk I will show a very different approach that uses only single-sample bulk DNA methylation data to provide an unexpectedly rich read out of the clonal history of tumour evolution. The approach relies on “fluctuating DNA methylation” - the random loss and gain of methylation at particular CpG sites which are evolutionarily neutral. We infer evolutionary history by modelling the site frequency spectrum of fluctuating methylation within single samples. I will show applications in haematological cancers where we use the approach to measure, in 1000s of cancers, tumour age, growth rate and various features of subclonal dynamics. In chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), this evolutionary history very strongly predicts clinical outcome.

Dr Rachael Barry

Targeting Hydrolytic Enzymes in Colorectal Cancer

Over 16,000 people in the United Kingdom died of colorectal cancer in 2017 (CRUK), and alarmingly, prevalence is increasing among younger adults. Disruption of colonic barrier integrity exposes our mucosal immune system to the gut microbiota, triggering inflammation and creating an environment conducive to tumorigenesis. Little is known about what compromises barrier integrity. Our analyses of post-operative luminal contents from cancer patients have shown that tumour-associated luminal contents exhibit distinct serine hydrolase activity and inhibitor profiles compared to adjacent tissue. Although hydrolases are important for maintaining colonic homeostasis, aberrant hydrolase activity can damage tissue. Using gut-culture models, we have demonstrated that tumour-associated luminal contents induce barrier dysfunction dependent on serine hydrolase activity. Therefore, targeting serine hydrolases either through chemical or endogenous inhibitors offers novel strategies for prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer.

Who can attend?

Researchers, students and anyone with an interest in convergence science relating to cancer research across Imperial and ICR are welcome to register, please email icr-imperial-convergence.centre@imperial.ac.uk to receive the registration link.