Current research projects
We partner with leading clinicians, institutions and academics across the UK. You can find out more about current research projects below.
Dr Alex Greenhough
University of the West of England
Dr Greenhough and his collaborators are investigating ways to improve how well chemoradiotherapy treatment works for patients with rectal cancer.
Dr Annie Baker
Institute of Cancer Research, London
Dr Baker is looking to predict which patient with inflammatory bowel disease can safely only have part of their bowel removed when precancerous changes are seen.
Professor Andrew Beggs
University of Birmingham
Professor Andrew Beggs at the University of Birmingham is testing a new way to diagnose inherited syndromes which increase bowel cancer risk, which could be faster and cheaper than the current testing.
Dr Anna Maria Ochocka-Fox
University of Edinburgh
Dr Anna Maria Ochocka-Fox at the University of Edinburgh is using tissue from people with familial adenomatous polyposis, an inherited condition that gives very high risk of bowel cancer, to develop a new resource to support research into better treatments for these patients.
Dr Christina Dobson
Newcastle University
Dr Dobson is looking at which people who visit their GP with possible bowel cancer symptoms are less likely to return a Faecal Immunochemical Test, and why.
Professor David Jayne
University of Leeds
Professor Jayne is the first surgical research Chair to be appointed as part of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS Eng) Surgical Trials Initiative. His work will drive forward surgical clinical trial research for bowel cancer.
Professor Eva Morris
University of Oxford
Professor Morris and her team will look at data from hospitals in England to identify cases where bowel cancers went undetected during a colonoscopy.
Dr Evropi Theodoratou and Dr Alessandro Rufini
Universities of Edinburgh and Leicester
Drs Theodoratou and Rufini are investigating whether it’s possible to find DNA from cancer cells in poo samples. If successful, this technique could potentially be used to improve bowel cancer screening and diagnosis.
Professor Farhat Din
University of Edinburgh
Professor Farhat Din has been appointed as Scotland’s first Colorectal Cancer Surgical Research Chair. Her work will help to deliver better patient care for people with bowel cancer through research.
Professor Joanne Edwards
University of Glasgow
Professor Edwards and her team are looking at the changes cancers go through when they spread to other organs.
Professor Katie Robb
University of Glasgow
Professor Katie Robb at the University of Glasgow is investigating attitudes towards future colonoscopies as a surveillance technique for people who have already had polyps removed in a screening colonoscopy.
Professor Lesley Smith
University of Hull
The number of people from the South Asian community that take part in bowel cancer screening in the UK is low, at around 30%. Professor Smith, along with colleagues at Oxford Brookes University and Liverpool John Moores, will investigate reasons why uptake is low and begin to develop a new project that encourages more people to take part in screening.
Professor Mark Lawler and Dr Ethna McFerran
Queen’s University Belfast
Professor Mark Lawler and Dr Ethna McFerran at Queen’s University Belfast is trialling adding a deadline to the bowel screening invitation letter, to see if this increases how many people complete their screening test.
Professor Mohammad Ilyas
University of Nottingham
Professor Ilyas, in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Leeds, Birmingham and Edinburgh, will compare bowel cancer samples from younger people with samples from people aged over 50. They want to see if there are differences that might affect how quickly a tumour grows.
Dr Nagore De Leon
University of Oxford
Dr Nagore De Leon at the University of Oxford is searching for new drugs that can stop precancerous polyps from progressing into bowel cancer, particularly in inherited conditions that cause the growth of many bowel polyps.
Professor Nathalie Juge
Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich
Professor Juge is investigating if a new blood test could be used, alongside the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT), to detect bowel cancer more accurately.
Mr Robert Jones
Aintree University Hospital and University of Liverpool
Mr Jones is the UK's first Surgical Specialty Lead in Advanced Colorectal Cancer, encouraging more surgical research and new surgical clinical trials.