Speaker Spotlight

What first drew you into brain cancer research, and what keeps you motivated day to day?

I first became interested in brain cancer research during my PhD in biomedical engineering in the United States, where I worked on developing new technologies for brain cancer surgery. It gave me the chance to bring together engineering and medicine to create solutions that can really help patients. That experience is what led me to continue working in this field, now here in Cambridge.

Brain cancer is a particularly challenging disease because it is highly complex and can vary greatly between patients. Tumours behave differently in each case, and the disease can progress in unpredictable ways. Understanding these variations and improving how the disease is detected and treated is what makes this field both demanding and engaging on a scientific level.

Our research can make a difference for patients, and that’s what keeps me going every day. Our team combines science, clinical experience, and patient perspectives, which makes the work feel purposeful and motivating.

How do you explain your work at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre to someone with no science background?

My work focuses on helping people with brain cancer by combining engineering, technology, and medicine. Brain surgery is especially challenging because tumours can be close to areas that control movement, speech, or memory. Before surgery, clinicians spend a lot of time planning exactly how to reach the tumour safely while preserving these critical areas. During the operation, the brain can shift slightly, making it hard for surgeons to know the tumour’s exact boundaries in real time.

This is where artificial intelligence, or AI, comes in. We use AI tools to analyse brain scans and track the tumour during surgery, helping the surgical team see changes and make adjustments as they operate. By combining these technologies with careful planning, we aim to make brain surgery safer, remove as much of the tumour as possible, and give patients the best chance of recovery. It’s about using research and technology to support surgeons and improve outcomes for patients.

What’s the biggest challenge researchers are trying to solve in brain cancer right now?

One of the biggest challenges in brain cancer research is how unpredictable and aggressive these tumours can be. They can grow in different ways, respond differently to treatment, and sometimes come back even after surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy. Understanding why this happens and finding ways to stop it is a major focus for researchers.

Another challenge is that the brain is an incredibly delicate organ. Treatments need to target the tumour without damaging areas that control movement, speech, or memory. To help with this, we are increasingly looking at different types of patient information together, such as brain scans, surgical data, and molecular or genetic information from the tumour. By combining and analysing these data using technologies like AI, we hope to better predict how a tumour will respond to treatment and support doctors in choosing the most effective approach for each patient. We are also exploring new ways to make surgery, radiation, and drug therapies more precise, and to monitor tumours and guide treatment in real time.