Dr Thomas Hughes

Profiling plasma microRNAs to diagnose breast cancer recurrence

The Fund will enable a pilot study to optimise the procedure of extracting microRNA from human breast cancer of differnet molecular characterisitcs and during different time-points of disease progression. microRNA expression will be analysed in order to identify microRNAs within each individual, and within cohorts, that are representative of the presence of breast tumours. We will examine whether these microRNAs can be detected within samples from later time points in individuals who suffered a recurrence, but not in those that remained disease-free.