Dr Karen Pinilla is a clinical research fellow at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre. She worked as a clinician in the breast unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital before starting her fellowship in October 2019. She is now based in both Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

Scientists have created one of the most detailed maps of breast cancer ever achieved, revealing how genetic changes shape the physical tumour landscape, according to research funded published in Nature Cancer.

A new type of scan that involves magnetising molecules allows doctors to see in real-time which regions of a breast tumour are active, according to research at the University of Cambridge and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A major international study of the genetics of breast cancer has identified more than 350 DNA ‘errors’ that increase an individual’s risk of developing the disease. The scientists involved say these errors may influence as many as 190 genes.

Cambridge scientists are set to benefit from a major cash injection from Cancer Research UK and partners to develop radical new strategies and technologies to detect cancer at its earliest stage.

Whole genome sequencing of tumour cells could help predict the prognosis of a patient’s cancer and offer clues to identify the most effective treatment, suggests an international study published today in Nature Medicine.

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have developed a platform that uses nanoparticles known as metal-organic frameworks to deliver a promising anti-cancer agent to cells.

Dr Kate Dry is Information Specialist in Professor Steve Jackson’s Lab at the Gurdon Institute. Here, she tells us about unexpected career paths, working in science while raising a family, and being a member of a world-leading cancer research lab. 

Scientists in Cambridge and London have developed a catalogue of DNA mutation ‘fingerprints’ that could help doctors pinpoint the environmental culprit responsible for a patient’s tumour – including showing some of the fingerprints left in lung tumours by specific chemicals found in tobacco smoke.

The genetic and molecular make-up of individual breast tumours holds clues to how a woman’s disease could progress, including the likelihood of it coming back after treatment, and in what time frame, according to a study published in Nature.