Charlotte Bottomley

Research interests

Patient outcomes in oesophageal cancer are highly variable, and personalisation of treatment selection is currently limited. Our lab has previously identified that infiltration of certain immune cells, from the myeloid lineage, into the tumour is predictive of response to immunotherapy in oesophageal cancer. My project aims to develop the understanding of myeloid cell fate in this context, by exploring the spatial definition of immune cell subsets in patients treated with immune activating therapies and standard treatments. This will involve developing live tissue patient avatars from oesophageal adenocarcinoma biopsies to enable characterisation of immune activity over time. Towards clinical application, I aim to define immune cell activation signatures for direct clinical testing to inform treatment decisions at an individual patient level.

Background

I completed a BSc in Medical Biosciences at Imperial College London then stayed at the university to specialise with an MSc in Immunology, completing my research project in the Department of Immunology and Inflammation in 2023. I continued working within this department as a research assistant within the Imperial BRC Immunology theme where I worked on two projects: using proteomics to investigate biomarkers of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disease activity, and analysing histologic lesion scores in kidney transplant biopsies to assess population level disease trends.