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Research Opportunities

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Prospective Students

The goal of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge (OxCam) Scholars Program is to create, foster, and advance unique and collaborative research opportunities between NIH laboratories and laboratories at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge. Each OxCam Scholar develops a collaborative research project that will constitute his/her doctoral training. Each Scholar also select two mentors – one at the NIH and one in the UK – who work together to guide the Scholar throughout the research endeavor.

Students may select from two categories of projects: Self-designed or Prearranged. OxCam Scholars may create a self-designed project, which enables students to develop a collaborative project tailored to his/her specific scientific interests by selecting one NIH mentor and one UK mentor with expertise in the desired research area(s). Alternatively, students may select a prearranged project provided by NIH and/or UK Investigator(s) willing to mentor an OxCam Scholar in their lab.

Self-designed Projects 
Students may create a novel (or de novo) project based on their unique research interests. Students have the freedom to contact any PI at NIH or at Oxford or Cambridge to build a collaboration from scratch. The NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) represents a community of approximately 1,200 tenured and tenure-track investigators providing a wealth of opportunity to explore a wide variety of research interests. Students may visit https://irp.nih.gov to identify NIH PIs performing research in the area of interest. For additional tips on choosing a mentor, please visit our Training Plan.

Prearranged Projects
Investigators at NIH or at Oxford or Cambridge have voluntarily offered collaborative project ideas for NIH OxCam Scholars. These projects are provided below and categorized by research area, NIH Institute/Center, and University. In some cases, a full collaboration with two mentors is already in place. In other instances, only one PI is identified, which allows the student to select a second mentor to complete the collaboration. Please note that prearranged project offerings are continuously updated throughout the year and are subject to change.

20 Search Results

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96
Category:
Cancer Biology
Project:

Comprehensive quantitative assessment of tissue biopsies in 3D

Project Listed Date:
Institute or Center:
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
NIH Mentor:

Dr. David Wink

University:
Oxford
Project Details:
N/A
95
Category:
Cancer Biology
Project:

Genetic and functional association of a novel human interferon, IFN-λ4, with human infections and cancer.

Project Listed Date:
Institute or Center:
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
UK Mentor:
N/A
University:
N/A
Project Details:
N/A
93
Category:
Cancer Biology
Project:

Genetics of squamous cell carcinoma - identifying high risk groups

Project Listed Date:
Institute or Center:
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
NIH Mentor:

Dr. Christian Abnet

University:
Cambridge
Project Details:
N/A
92
Category:
Cancer Biology
Project:

Risk factors and biomarkers of Burkitt lymphoma (BL)

Project Listed Date:
Institute or Center:
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
NIH Mentor:

Dr. Sam Mbulaiteye

UK Mentor:

Prof. Ana Schuh

University:
Oxford
Project Details:

The BL research is organized into four focus areas: a) epidemiology; b) infections; c) genetics, and d) tumor studies. The epidemiological studies seek to characterize the macro- and micro-geographical and spatial-temporal  patterns of endemic Burkitt lymphoma to generate new hypotheses about environmental risk factors. The infection focus seek to discover infection-related biomarkers of risk, focusing on unique serological profiles or discovery of high-risk genetic variants for EBV or Pf infection associated with eBL risk. The genetic studies (GWAS, exome, HLA) provide a powerful approach to complement questionnaire and serological methods with less concern for measurement error, reverse causality, and imperfect correlation with biology to disentangle the genetic architecture of eBL risk.  Finally, BL is a molecular disease with identifiable molecular sub-groups. The EMBLEM study provides an opportunity to collaborate with others on studies to develop a blood-based assay for BL diagnosis and molecular characterization. Students will be given the opportunity to spend time in East Africa with collaborating partners to be involved with data and sample collections.

 

The primary goals of EMBLEM are to investigate:

a) risk factors of BL in endemic populations in East Africa;

b) EBV and Pf immuno-profiles and other biomarkers associated with BL;

c) molecular characteristics of BL tumor genomes, B-cell receptor, and EBV variants; and

d) germline risk factors of BL using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and exome sequencing

e) the association between BL and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and II loci.

91
Category:
Cancer Biology
Project:

Crosstalk between tumour suppressor p53 and inflammation in cancer

Project Listed Date:
Institute or Center:
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
NIH Mentor:

Dr. Curtis Harris

UK Mentor:

Prof. Xin Lu

University:
Oxford
Project Details:

The tumour suppressor p53 is encoded by the most mutated gene in human cancers and there is extensive knowledge of its vital role in tumour suppression. However, the contribution of p53 to immune surveillance is less well understood. Cancer initiation and progression is influenced by inflammation, and it is increasingly important to understand interactions between inflammatory and tumourigenic pathways to improve cancer prevention and patient responses to immunotherapy. p53 activity is known to intersect with key inflammatory signalling pathways, including NFB, AP1, MAPK and JAK/STAT, suggesting p53 could have a pivotal role in immune surveillance. To expand knowledge in this important area, this project will investigate crosstalk between the p53 pathway and inflammation.

 

The project will use cutting edge technologies, including ex vivo 3D organoid co-culture models, to study interactions between cancer-initiating epithelial cells and immune cells. It will also harness recent advances in RNA-sequencing, single cell analysis and ChIP-sequencing, as well as a broad range of molecular cell biology techniques, to address the crosstalk between p53 and inflammation. The student will be able to leverage access to expertise and clinical samples in chronic inflammatory conditions – such as Barrett’s Oesophagus – that predispose patients to cancer. Oesophageal cancer and stomach cancer may be used as exemplar cancer types; these cancers have important unmet clinical needs and strong links to inflammation. This project may also extend to crosstalk of p53 with the immune system, such as in the context of immunotherapy for cancer: an emerging therapeutic strategy that is showing great success in some patients. The study will offer exciting opportunities to understand the details of the relationship between p53 and inflammation, which will be crucial for developing new approaches for early intervention to prevent cancer progression and for understanding responses to therapy.

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