I am a postdoctoral fellow in Inigo Martincorena’s group, within the Somatic Genomics programme. I study how cancer begins — the mutations and clonal expansions that accumulate in normal tissue years to decades before a tumour appears — and how we might read and modify this “clonal landscape” to predict and prevent cancer. Right now, I am most interested in developing non-invasive somatic genomics as a platform for cancer interception. Using ultra-accurate single-molecule DNA sequencing (NanoSeq), I read somatic mutations from samples such as buccal swabs, breast milk and capsule sponges to evaluate how risk factors shape somatic biomarkers in lung, breast and oesophageal tissue. I am especially interested in how chemopreventive drugs can reshape the clonal landscape of the female breast.
This builds on my PhD with Peter Campbell and Inigo Martincorena, in collaboration with Sam Janes at University College London. There, I showed that tobacco-mutated cells persist in the lung long after people stop smoking — helping to explain why the risk of lung adenocarcinoma does not fall after quitting. I am also completing a study using breast milk as a non-invasive readout of the breast, in the largest somatic survey of the normal breast to date. Throughout my PhD, I was fortunate to contribute to first-author papers in Nature and Nature Communications, and to studies in Science and other high-impact journals.
Above all, I am driven to have an impact on society, and I pursue this in two ways. First, I communicate science actively on social media. Second, I am fascinated by entrepreneurship: alongside research I completed an MBA at the Collège des Ingénieurs and worked in industry, which sharpened my focus on translating science into clinical impact. In future, I hope to commercialise my research for broader benefit to health.
Feel free to get in touch — I am always happy to chat.
My timeline
Postdoctoral Fellow - Dr. Inigo Martincorena - Somatic Genomics - Wellcome Sanger Institute
Science & Management (MBA) Fellow - Collège des Ingénieurs
PhD Student - Dr. Peter Campbell & Dr. Inigo Martincorena - Cancer, Ageing and Somatic Mutations - Wellcome Sanger Institute
Visiting Student - Prof. Dr. C. Curtis, Dr. K. Karlsson - Cancer Computational and Systems Biology Group - Stanford University
Graduate Research Student - Prof. Dr. O. Stegle, Dr. N. Casiraghi, Dr. H. Susak - Statistical Genomics and Systems Genetics - DKFZ German Cancer Research Center
Visiting Student - Prof. Dr. C. Swanton, Dr. S. Turajlic - Cancer Evolution and Genome Instability Laboratory - The Francis Crick Institute
Master of Science - University of Heidelberg
Graduate Student Research Assistant - Prof. Dr. M. v. Knebel-Doeberitz, PD Dr. M. Kloor - Department of Applied Tumor Biology - University Hospital Heidelberg
Bachelor of Science - University of Heidelberg