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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute @cruk-mi.bsky.social · Jun 6

We are recruiting two exciting #Postdoctoral roles:

🧪 Work with @clausjorgensen.bsky.social on targeting the tumour #microenvironment in #PancreaticCancer

🥼 Join @drwilliamhill.bsky.social to study air pollution & #LungCancer

Full details of both positions at:
www.cruk.manchester.ac.uk/careers/

Photo shows three glowing green bottles of chemicals, with a space where a fourth bottle can be placed

Text says "New job openings" and "See all recruitment opportunities by visiting cruk.manchester.ac.uk/careers/"

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

William Hill @drwilliamhill.bsky.social · Jun 6

Thrilled to announce I'm moving to Manchester to lead the Cancer Origins group! If you're interested in how mutations and exposures drive tumourigenesis — come join the adventure

Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute @cruk-mi.bsky.social · Jun 6

We are recruiting two exciting #Postdoctoral roles:

🧪 Work with @clausjorgensen.bsky.social on targeting the tumour #microenvironment in #PancreaticCancer

🥼 Join @drwilliamhill.bsky.social to study air pollution & #LungCancer

Full details of both positions at:
www.cruk.manchester.ac.uk/careers/

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Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · 13d

Our lab is hiring!

This is for a postdoctoral position @ucl.ac.uk in Respiratory Medicine.

Please check out the link for more details:
www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · 19d

Thank you so much!

Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Glasgow City of Science and Innovation @gcosi.bsky.social · 21d

🧬 Glasgow researcher Dr Alexander Raven has been awarded a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to advance understanding of how liver cancer develops, with the aim of improving detection and treatment

📍 University of Glasgow
👇 Learn more

glasgowcityofscienceandinnovation.com/glasgow-canc...

Glasgow Cancer Scientist Awarded Prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship | Glasgow City Of Science & Innovation

Alexander Raven, an early career researcher from the School of Cancer Sciences, has been awarded one of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) flagship Future Leaders Fellowships.

glasgowcityofscienceandinnovation.com

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Polly Fordyce @pollyfordyce.bsky.social · 21d

Please apply to our tenure-track faculty position at
@stanford-chemh.bsky.social! We are searching for a new colleague working at the interface between computation and molecular sciences. See post below and pls forward widely!
chemh.stanford.edu/opportunitie...

Faculty Recruitment

chemh.stanford.edu

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Hugh Selway-Clarke @hughselwayclarke.bsky.social · Sep 3

My main PhD project is now up on bioRxiv! If you’re interested in somatic evolution or machine learning for simulation-based inference, read on… 
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
[1/15]

Recovery of human upper airway epithelium after smoking cessation is driven by a slow-cycling stem cell population and immune surveillance

The upper airway epithelium in humans is maintained in homeostasis by a resident population of basal stem cells. In the presence of tobacco smoke these gain mutations that significantly increase their...

doi.org

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Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · 22d

I am thrilled to have received a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship! This award will enable my laboratory to uncover how our body's natural antiviral defences, including APOBEC3 enzymes, contribute to the earliest stages of lung cancer. 🧪 www.ukri.org/news/ukri-an...

UKRI announces winners of £120 million Future Leaders Fellowships

Research into the causes of lung cancer and Alzheimer’s disease are among 77 projects to be funded by UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships.

www.ukri.org

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Yale Cancer Center @yalecancer.bsky.social · Aug 26

A study led by @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social reveals #tobacco alters lung #adenocarcinoma evolution: smokers’ tumors favor KRAS/KEAP1/STK11, never-smokers’ favor EGFR/PIK3CA—revealing distinct treatment vulnerabilities.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@toomuchvitamink.bsky.social

Tobacco smoke alters the trajectory of lung adenocarcinoma evolution via effects on somatic selection and epistasis

Background Tobacco smoke is a known mutagen. However, its physiological effects on the lung may also influence the somatic selective pressures acting on mutations, further shaping cancer evolution. Th...

biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

James Reading @jamesreading.bsky.social · Aug 5

🚨 PhD Position available in our lab 🚨 exploring the power of blood immune multi-omics to detect lung cancer years prior to clinical diagnosis in a unique cohort of >10,000 CT screened individuals.
✅ Wet & dry lab
✅ September 2025 enrolment
✅ UK tuition fees only

www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-scie...

Pre-Cancer Immunology

The Pre-Cancer Immunology Lab (James Reading Lab) is mapping pre-invasive T cell dynamics during carcinogenesis to detect and intercept cancer development.

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · Jul 31

A study in Nature shows that respiratory viruses trigger metastatic breast cancer cells to proliferate in lungs in mouse models of breast cancer. These findings are supported by human observational data. go.nature.com/4l7NZ8l #medsky 🧪

This is figure 2, which shows influenza A virus infection promotes dormant DCC proliferation and phenotypic change.

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Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Jul 29

Thank you so much!

Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Apr 17

Beautiful work!

Rémi Buisson @buissonlab.bsky.social · Apr 16

Today, we report that APOBEC3B targets unprotected single-stranded DNA at replication forks upon ATR inhibition, triggering a reaction cascade involving UNG2 and APE1 that leads to fork collapse and hyperactivation of PARP1, causing replication catastrophe.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Mechanism of DNA replication fork breakage and PARP1 hyperactivation during replication catastrophe

Upon ATR inhibition, APOBEC3B targets unprotected single-stranded DNA at replication forks, leading to fork breakage.

www.science.org

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Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Apr 11

Exciting! 🧪

RNA Therapeutics Institute @rti-umasschan.bsky.social · Mar 31

Hot off the press from the RTI: Next generation APOBEC3 inhibitors: optimally designed for potency and nuclease stability
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40156866/?ut... #RNA #RNATherapeutics

Next generation APOBEC3 inhibitors: optimally designed for potency and nuclease stability - PubMed

APOBEC3 (or A3) enzymes have emerged as potential therapeutic targets due to their role in introducing heterogeneity in viruses and cancer, often leading to drug resistance. Inhibiting these enzymes has...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Apr 9

Thanks so much!

Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Apr 9

Thank you so much!

Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Apr 7

I am excited to announce that my laboratory @ucl.ac.uk is now open!

We are hiring so please contact us if you are interested.

www.caswelllaboratory.com

Lung Cancer Prevention Laboratory

Pioneering research in lung cancer to improve diagnosis, treatment and prevention

www.caswelllaboratory.com

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Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Apr 7

Can you please add me as a contributer: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The role of APOBEC3B in lung tumor evolution and targeted cancer therapy resistance - Nature Genetics

Analyses of in vivo models, cell lines and patient-derived samples show that apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing catalytic subunit 3B (APOBEC3B) not only restrains lung tumor initiation but also that its up...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Markus Eyting @meyting.bsky.social · Apr 2

Our paper on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia is now out in Nature! 🎉

Huge thanks to Felix Michalik, Seunghun Chung, @pascalge.bsky.social and especially Min Xie (@minxiesci.bsky.social) & Simon Heß (@hesss.org) making the analysis so much fun!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia - Nature

Using a natural experiment that avoids common bias concerns, this study finds that the live-attenuated shingles vaccine reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis within a follow-up period of...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · Mar 23

Personalized therapeutic strategies that target APOBEC 🧪 offer promise for the enhancement of TKI treatment efficacy by delaying the evolution of drug resistance in lung cancer.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Precision projections of the delay of resistance mutations in non-small cell lung cancer via suppression of APOBEC

Genomic instability driven by stress-response-dependent mutagenesis is a key factor in cancer progression. Tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy, a common…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · Mar 23

Our data-driven analysis indicates that inhibition of APOBEC activity would substantially extend therapeutic efficacy 🧪, with the degree of benefit varying based on patient-specific APOBEC mutagenesis levels.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

APOBEC rate averages versus time gained. This scatter plot illustrates the positive relationship between the average APOBEC rate across sites within patients and the corresponding time gained in each patient. The dashed line is a linear regression trend. This inferred relationship is fairly strong (slope = 1.3) and is statistically significant (P = 0.005) with n = 15 points.

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · Mar 23

By analyzing tumor sequence data to infer gene-specific and patient-specific mutation rates, we used (for the first time) some straightforward mathematics of mutation rates to project the delay of resistance obtained by suppression of APOBEC mutation 🧪.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Expected time until the first resistance mutation without complete suppression of APOBEC (purple bars) and with complete suppression of APOBEC (black bars) in each patient, expressed in molecular clock units, and the consequent expected percentage of time that could have been gained before resistance arose with APOBEC inhibited. Resistance-associated variants were identified by Caswell et al. and Isozaki et al. in each patient

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · Mar 23

@alkpositiveuk.bsky.social—ALK resistance mutations show greater APOBEC attribution than e.g. EGFR mutations. Therefore, patients with ALK+ tumors would benefit more from therapies suppressing APOBEC activity 🧪.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Mutational signature weights (potential mutational processes) underlying TKI resistance-associated gene variants in non-small-cell lung cancer patient samples, sorted by descending attribution to A3A/A3B processes.

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Reposted by Debbie Caswell

Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · Mar 23

We estimated the contribution of APOBEC to mutational signatures in the twenty-one NSCLC patients that featured detailed clinical records of TKI treatment 🧪 and tissue sampling during or after treatment or at autopsy.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Debbie Caswell @caswelldrm.bsky.social · Mar 27

Thanks for mentioning our article @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social. Your paper projecting how APOBEC inhibition could improve outcomes in patients with non-small cell lung cancer is fascinating!

Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · Mar 23

Cancer cells adapt to induced stress via hijacked mitigation pathways such as APOBEC, enabling resistance. This adaptability complicates treatment. However, it reveals exploitable vulnerabilities 🧪.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The role of APOBEC3B in lung tumor evolution and targeted cancer therapy resistance - Nature Genetics

Analyses of in vivo models, cell lines and patient-derived samples show that apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing catalytic subunit 3B (APOBEC3B) not only restrains lung tumor initiation but also that its up...

www.nature.com

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