Professor Alexander Swarbrick

Research Interests:

The Swarbrick lab is a multidisciplinary group with the mission to develop new treatment strategies for breast and prostate cancer and melanoma. We study human disease and patient-derived xenografts using advanced cell biology, immunology, molecular biology and computational methods.

We are leaders in the application of cellular genomics to oncology. Single cell and spatial genomics are revolutionizing our understanding of cell biology, immunology and genomics and promise to fuel a new generation of biological insights and treatments for cancer. We have optimised and developed methods to permit high-plex multiomic single cell and tissue analysis, measuring whole transcriptomes, hundreds of protein markers and targeted genome sequences from thousands of cells per sample.

With our close clinical collaborators, we have an active fresh tissue collection program, building unique cohorts of tissue sampled throughout disease progression:

• Early disease, both untreated and undergoing neoadjuvant therapy

• Metastatic disease, sampled at relapse and during adjuvant therapy

• At death from cancer, we harvest multiple metastatic deposits from consenting participants through our rapid autopsy program.

My lab is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of cell biology, pathology, oncology, computation biology and genetics. Its a great place to learn, and great fun.  

https://www.swarbricklab.com/

Broad Research Areas:
Cancer, Cell Biology and Gene Regulation, single cell genomics, cellular genomics, spatial biology, single cell RNA-Seq, animal models, translational research

Specific Research Keywords:
Metastasis, Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Breast Cancer, prostate cancer, single cell genomics, transcriptomics