THE TEAM
#teamscience
PROF STEPHEN TAYLOR
Leech Professor of Pharmacology and
Head of Division of Cancer Sciences
Stephen was first funded in Manchester by a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship, then CRUK Senior Research Fellowships in 2004 and in 2009, when he became Professor of Cell Biology. In 2015, Stephen was awarded the Leech Chair of Pharmacology and in 2016 a CRUK Programme Award. A 2016 move to the Manchester Cancer Research Centre led to collaborations with CRUK’s Manchester Drug Discovery Unit and clinicians at The Christie Hospital. This has now enabled the lab to combine high-quality basic science with translational science and drug discovery in the context of ovarian cancer.
ANTHONY TIGHE
Research Fellow
Anthony has been a member of the Taylor lab team for over 20 years and has made major contributions to the lab’s research on mitosis and the cell cycle. He has extensive expertise in the characterisation of small-molecule inhibitors and in the use microscopy approaches to study mitosis and chromosome instability. He is currently using patient-derived HGSOC ex vivo cultures to evaluate the role of ABC transporter and pro-survival protein family members in paclitaxel sensitivity
LOUISA NELSON
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Having been a member of the Taylor lab for almost 10 years, Louisa leads the ovarian cancer pipeline and is responsible for generating and characterising ex vivo cultures from this pipeline. As well as maintaining the pipeline, Louisa’s current work also involves generation of transcriptomics and proteomics data sets from the ex vivo cultures.
SAMANTHA LITTLER
Research Assistant
In addition to managing her own research projects, Sam has had an underpinning role supporting research in the Taylor lab for over 6 years. Her key research interest has been the role of Myc in modulating mitosis and more recently in researching synthetic lethal approaches to target ovarian cancers with Myc overexpression.
CAMILLA COULSON-GILMER
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Since joining the Taylor lab in 2018, Camilla’s main research interest has been in understanding the mechanism of PARG inhibitor sensitivity and the role of PARG in managing DNA replication stress. Camilla recently completed a detailed characterisation of 10 ovarian cancer cell lines, including 4 sensitive to PARG inhibition, showing that sensitivity correlated with markers of replication stress. Using Nanostring, she also found that sensitive cell lines have down-regulated DNA replication genes. She is now evaluating these genes and PARG inhibitor sensitivity in patient-derived HGSOC samples.
BETHANY BARNES
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Beth is the Taylor lab’s resident bioinformatics specialist. She has a strong interest in machine learning and, since joining the lab in 2020, has been applying this to RNAseq data from the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopaedia. Using non-negative matrix factorisation, Beth found that the transcriptional profiles of 45 ovarian cancer cell lines clusters them into 5 classes representative of the 5 subtypes of ovarian cancer. By coupling NMF with machine learning she hopes to be able to support histopathological classification of new lines and patient samples. She is also now using combined transcriptomics and proteomics to identify signatures associated with drug sensitivity.
JULIA MORRIS
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Julia is a Postdoctoral scientist from Manchester’s CRUK Manchester Institute’s Drug Discovery Unit (DDU), seconded to the Taylor lab to explore PARG inhibition in combination with other agents. Julia’s work also forms part of the collaboration between the Taylor lab, DDU and IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc., to evaluate IDEAYA's PARG inhibitors in vitro in multiple ovarian cancer cell lines and in vivo in ovarian cancer xenograft models.
ANYA GOLDER
PhD Student
Anya joined the lab as a PhD student in 2016. As part of her PhD Anya developed and optimised a live-cell imaging proliferation assay using Incucyte technology, which is now the established method in the lab for drug-sensitivity profiling of cell lines and the patient-derived HGSOC ex vivo cultures. Anya has gone on to utilise this assay to explore multiple low-dose drug treatment approaches as potential therapies for ovarian cancer.
DANIEL BRONDER
PhD Student
After starting his PhD in 2016 Daniel spent his first two years in the Taylor lab and is now undertaking the second half of his studies in Thomas Ried’s lab at the NCI in Bethesda. The focus of Daniel’s PhD has been to model chromosomal instability (CIN) in fallopian tube non-ciliated epithelial (FNE) cells through mutation of TP53 and BRCA1 and overexpression of MYC. Through his collaboration with the Ried lab, Daniel has been using high-throughput interphase FISH to characterise CIN.
ROBERT MORGAN
Clinical Research Fellow
Rob is a Specialty Medical Oncology Registrar and a CRUK Clinical Research Training Fellow in the Taylor lab. His key research interest is deciphering mechanisms of PARP and PARG inhibitor sensitivity using the biobank of patient-derived HGSOC ex vivo cultures, which he is currently screening for sensitivity to these agents. Rob helped set up and maintain the ovarian cancer pipeline with the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, and he also supports other lab members in providing clinical context and interpreting clinical data.
ROSIE BRADY
PhD Student
Rosie started her PhD in the Taylor lab in 2018 with the aim to research the role of PARG in DNA replication and the DNA damage response. To do this she is undertaking detailed mechanistic studies using model systems, focussing on DNA replication proteins with a synthetic lethal interaction with PARG inhibition, such as TIMELESS.
MALINI DEY
PhD Student
Malini started her PhD in the Taylor lab in September 2019. In collaboration with industry, she aims to develop aptamer-based biosensors to measure PAR dynamics in live cells. In order to do this, she initially aims to purify stable PAR chains attached to PARP1 from cells by affinity purification. Once developed, Malini will use the biosensors to study PARylation and its role in DNA replication and damage repair.
RHYS OWEN
PhD Student
Rhys first came to the Taylor lab in September 2019 to undertake a rotation project evaluating the mechanism of PARP inhibitor sensitivity in cells with wild type BRCA1/2 genes. He is now undertaking his PhD in the lab for which he will focus on exploiting SUMOylation to target MYC.
JO MCGRAIL
Project Manager
Jo joined the lab having spent almost 10 years as a writer in Medical Communications, during which time she developed a strong interest in drug development in oncology. She helps the lab with multiple aspects of project management, including grant applications.
CHARLENE TAWZER
Personal Assistant to Professor Taylor
Charlene joined the lab in 2015, just in time to celebrate the group’s move to the new, purpose-built Oglesby Cancer Research Building and Professor Taylor’s 2016 CRUK Programme Award. In addition to her role as Personal Assistant to Professor Taylor in his research capacity, she also serves as an administrator for the University’s Division of Cancer Sciences, which is headed by Professor Taylor himself.