Professor Richard J Gilbertson
Professor Gilbertson trained as a paediatric oncologist in the UK before moving in 2000 to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, USA where he served as Scientific and Comprehensive Cancer Centre Director, Executive Vice President and Lillian R Cannon Endowed Chair. In August 2015, he moved back home to England where he is Li Ka Shing Chair of Oncology and Head of Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Cancer
Research UK Cambridge Centre and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK
Cambridge Institute.
The Gilbertson Lab
Research in the Gilbertson lab is focused on understanding the link between normal development and the origins of cancer, particularly brain tumours. The principal aim of their research is to improve the accuracy of brain tumour classification and treatment, avoiding long-term side effects for those who can be cured, whilst providing new therapeutic targets to guide future treatment.
Dr Jessica Taylor
Jessica is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Gilbertson lab at CRUK Cambridge Institute, having recently completed her PhD studies in repurposing chemotherapeutics to treat Glioblastoma Multiforme at the University of Manchester. Her current work in developmental paediatric brain tumours focuses on novel therapeutics that will mitigate post-therapeutic morbidity in brain cancer survivors. She is at CRUK Cambridge Institute, School of Clinical Medicine.
Dr Elizabeth Cooper
Elizabeth joined the Centre in January 2023 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Elizabeth carried out her PhD at the University of Auckland, exploring a class of near-infrared dyes as a drug-delivery system to repurpose tyrosine kinase inhibitors for glioblastoma. Working with Prof. Richard Gilbertson, Elizabeth is interested in understanding the developmental origins of ependymoma, a rare paediatric brain tumour.
Sigourney Bonner
Sigourney is a third-year PhD student at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute Her PhD is funded by Cancer Research UK and focusses on developing novelmodels and therapeutics for ependymoma, with the long-term goal of using this knowledge to create new therapies for this unmet clinical need. Alongside her PhD, Sigourney is a co-founder of Black in Cancer, an organisation that aims to empower and encourage future Black Cancer leaders whilst reducing cancer disparities through education and advocacy. She was also named as a Forbes 30 under 30 honouree in 2021 for her work.
Katherine Wickham Rahrmann
Katie is a Scientific Associate in the laboratory of Prof Richard Gilbertson at Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute. She joined the Gilbertson Group in 2016 where she has focused her research efforts on creating a genetically engineered mouse model of the human paediatric brain tumour ependymoma. Katherine has over fifteen years of research experience spanning both academia and industry. She has previously worked as a validation technician assessing cleaning processes of orthopaedic devices for human use at Smith & Nephew. Prior to this, Katherine was an assistant scientist at the University of Minnesota where she used mass spectrometry-based methods to quantify nicotine and carcinogen exposure and metabolism in people.
The Gilbertson Lab
