My Career Path, by Adam Chambers

Mr Adam Chambers is a Clinical Lecturer based in the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bristol and Colorectal Registrar at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust.

I became a doctor in 2009 intent on becoming a surgeon. To achieve this, I recognised the need to develop my CV early on in my career and think ‘2-3 years ahead’. As a result, I undertook a distance learning MSc in Wound healing and tissue repair at Cardiff University, which I completed, part-time, throughout my foundation years and into core surgical training. This degree really sparked an interest in laboratory basic science through modules on ‘inflammation in wound healing’ and ‘the role of oxygen in wound healing’.

Having achieved my higher surgical training number, I wanted to see if I could undertake a PhD. I had developed an interest in colorectal cancer through periods of clinical training in Edinburgh and Bath and I wanted to see if it was possible to combine both inflammation and cancer research. Therefore, I approached Prof Ann Williams based in the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bristol. I spent a couple of short periods in the lab to get initial experience and she helped me apply for an Elizabeth Blackwell Institute Clinical Primer award. This was successful, and funded 6 months of my time out of clinical work.

I made an unsuccessful bid to the Wellcome Trust to fund a PhD, before applying to the Medical Research Council (MRC) pre-doctoral fellowship scheme (since renamed clinical research training fellowships). My application scored enough to achieve an interview but had criticisms in the feedback and so I went to interview knowing where I would have to defend it and so prepared intensively for this interview. As a result, I was successful in securing funding from the MRC and this enabled me to complete my PhD.

Throughout my PhD I have continued to apply for research funding and most recently have been successful in securing funding from Above and Beyond. I have also built collaborations and completed other projects besides my core PhD work; this enabled me to continue to publish regularly and present my work internationally. I was awarded an Academic Clinical Lectureship in 2019, which I took up in November 2020; my research focus is on the response of colorectal cancers to neoadjuvant therapy. In 2022 I was awarded a University Cancer Research Fund Early- to Mid-Career award which provided me with £30,000 to help set up an independent lab and further my research into colorectal cancers. 

 

Getting From A to B, by Tim Robinson

Dr Tim Robinson is an Academic Clinical Lecturer in Medical Oncology based in Bristol Medical School: Population Health Sciences and SpR Medical Oncology at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust.

I attended the University of Nottingham and my first taste of research was as a medical student with an observational project looking at clinical predictors of poor outcome in African adults with malaria. I won a research prize for this and it got me interested in undertaking further research and so, when I graduated in 2007, I took up a post as an Academic Foundation Programme Trainee in Oxford. Here, I undertook Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) on patients who were returning to the UK with malaria to demonstrate that we could detect polyclonality of malarial infection better using NGS than traditional sequencing techniques.

In 2009 I moved to Bristol to undertake core medical training and stopped doing research – unsure of what direction my career would take. In 2010 I did a rotation in oncology and, to be honest, haven’t looked back. I loved the clinical side of it and the more I thought of it the more I saw parallels between oncology and my previous research – that is a host trying to overcome a foreign entity.

After a year working in rural South Africa, I returned as a speciality trainee in medical oncology in 2012 and then won Cancer Research UK funding to undertake a PhD at Cardiff University under Dr Richard Clarkson. Here, I investigated the role of chemotherapy in driving cancer stem cell behaviour and used novel compounds to target these stem cells. This work is still ongoing having been delayed by the involvement of an early-stage biotech company – many lessons were learnt! During that time, I was also lucky enough to be selected for the FLIMS methods in Clinical Cancer Research workshop that was certainly one of the highlights of my career to date.

In 2018 I started as an Academic Clinical Lecturer in Medical Oncology at Bristol and have spent the last three years undertaking numerous projects using genetic approaches (both germline and somatic) to understand risk, progression and response to treatment mainly in breast cancer but also across other cancer types. I have setup and recruited to two clinical studies examining the role of exosomes in treatment resistance in an aggressive type of breast cancer called Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

I have managed to secure over £300 000 in research funding to undertake this work and am currently co-supervising two PhD students here in Bristol. In addition, I have led and taken part in many Mendelian Randomization studies and am hoping to use the skills I am gaining in genetic epidemiology and statistics to apply for a clinician scientist post in 2021.

My most recent work, examining the role of the gut microbiome in breast cancer risk, won a research prize for my presentation at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in 2020 and is being submitted for publication. I also chair two national groups – the Breast Cancer Trainees Research Collaborative Group and the Cancer Research UK Junior Investigators Network Committee, and am part of a European collaborative called ENDEAVOUR. Together, these ensure my involvement and skills in clinical research continue to grow. Bristol has been an incredibly supportive environment for my research and I would encourage anyone thinking about a career in cancer research to get in touch.

The Vet's pathway

Dr Grace Edmunds (BSc, BVSc, MRCVS, PhD) is Clinical Research Fellow at Bristol Veterinary School

I am a Clinical Research Fellow at Bristol Vet School, a post which combines specialist clinical training in veterinary oncology with protected research time. My projects use inter-disciplinary research to achieve risk-stratification and subtyping of canine and human osteosarcoma. My research interests lie in tumour immunology, in particular how the immune tumour-microenvironment is affected by hypoxia, and how combination cancer therapies might combat this. I am currently designing transcriptomic methodologies to achieve risk-stratification and subtyping of canine and human osteosarcoma based on immune profiling.

I graduated from Bristol Vet School with an intercalated BSc in tumour immunology. It was intercalation which taught me that the immune system could kill cancer, and which got me hooked on research. After completing my studies, I spent time in small animal general practice before securing an Elizabeth Blackwell Institute Clinical Primer Award, which I used to prepare for and achieve a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship, which would fund my PhD.

My PhD was completed in the Morgan and Wuelfing labs, School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, at the University of Bristol. I determined mechanisms of suppression of CD8+ T cells by adenosine in a renal-cancer model using microscopy and flow-cytometry. After completing my PhD in 2019 I sought more funding from the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute to do a 9 month discipline-hopping fellowship. This allowed me to spend time learning genetic epidemiology in the Integrated Cancer Epidemiology Programme (ICEP) at Bristol, using genome-wide association study data to establish associations between immune traits and breast-cancer risk.

I now collaborate with scientists at both ICEP and Cardiff University utilising sequencing data from both breast cancer and osteosarcoma in humans and dogs. I am establishing a canine tissue bank, and aim to use ‘omics approaches with laboratory studies to determine how immune profiling can inform cancer early-detection and prognostication. I work for the benefit of both humans and companion animals and am excited about the fact that every piece of work I do has the potential to benefit both species. We are designing a large programme of studies across institutions and would be keen to hear from potential students or post-graduates looking to execute work relating to hypoxia and the immune microenvironment in cancer and other disease processes.