My research involves looking for predictive biomarkers in the blood (e.g. proteins or metabolites) to try and improve the early detection of brain cancer.

Brain cancer, especially gliomas, have such a low survival rate after five years (~20%) and the most years of life lost caused by any cancer. The survival rate is even less for the glioblastoma subtype which is only about 7% after five years. A survey in 2013 found that 38% of brain tumour patients visited their GP five times or more before referral to secondary care for diagnosis by imaging MRI/CT scan and neurosurgical biopsy. This is because the symptoms such as headache are non-specific. This highlights a need for the early detection of brain tumours through a cheap and minimally invasive liquid biopsy. My hope is to be able to help these patients by finding a predictive biomarker for glioma patients.