The Cancer Systems Microscopy Lab aims to contribute to improved cancer treatment outcomes by advancing:
- Precision Diagnostics; using a unique suite of imaging-based methods for diagnosis of cancer-drivers in individual patients, enabling precision use of existing targeted therapies
- Targeted Therapies; via a novel high-content strategy for discovery and diversification of cancer therapy leads, supporting accelerated development of new targeted therapies
- Fundamental Insights; deploying multidisciplinary methods to analyse core mechanisms underpinning cancer progression, finding new vulnerabilities in human cancer
This builds on pioneering efforts in the development and application of Systems Microscopy - an imaging-based strategy designed to replicate the scalability, reproducibility and quantitative rigour of existing single cell systems biology (‘Omics’) techniques. As well as incorporating the critical dimensions of space and time into molecular analyses of cellular regulation and function, Systems Microscopy leverages the high signal-to-noise characteristics of (immuno)-fluorescence imaging to provide a powerful alternative / complement to current gold-standard strategies for precision medicine.
Current projects
The Cancer Systems Microscopy Lab is engaged in key projects including diagnostic analysis of cancer patient-derived circulating tumour cell samples, development of new strategies for therapeutic lead / drug discovery, fundamental research into cancer cell plasticity in the epithelial-mesenchymal cell states spectrum. The lab also develops deep learning methods to augment, integrate and interpret multi-modal imaging data to expand single-cell systems biology analyses.
Highlighted publications
Our experts
John Lock - Group Leader
John is passionate about both fundamental and translational cancer research. He tackles these topics primarily through the application of imaging-based systems biology techniques; collectively termed ‘Systems Microscopy’. This reflects John’s role as an early pioneer in quantitative microscopic imaging and analysis of live and fixed single cells - using these tools to interrogate complex molecular systems, emergent cell behaviours and heterogeneity across these scales in time and space. John has driven such research into many aspects of cancer cell biology including cell phenotype / morphology, cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion, cell migration and polarity, cell division, protein trafficking and various molecular signalling systems.
PhD students
- Felix Kohane
- Andrew Gunawan
- Gloria (Ye) Zheng
- Moumitha Dey
- Joey Yusof Vessey
Team members
- Tim Mann
- Daniel Neumann
Research Theme
Cancer | Biophysics | Drug Discovery |
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