Yesterday, @DuncanGolestani from @ITNProductions came to @OxfordCancer to film a piece about turning biology into treatment for @RoyalSocBio. They met Cheryl who started a Phase I trial at our @EPCTU in Jun 2019. Here she is with husband Steve.

Cheryl described her experience of having advanced melanoma, how her cancer had grown despite immunotherapy and how she came to Oxford for experimental research. She started the NUTIDE-701 Phase I trial and has remained on it for 14 months...and counting..

NUTIDE-701 is a trial of the ProTide NUC-7738 originally developed by the late, great Chris McGuigan @cardiffuni. He wanted to reformulate chemotherapy so it was less toxic and more potent. His ProTide drugs have been commercialised by @Nucana_news and are now in clinical trials

This is where @TheBlagdenlab got involved. We wanted to fully understand the biology of NUC-7738 in cancer cells and patients. @schwehag painstakingly explored this using high-throughput sequencing and gene-trap technology

We enlisted the help of Leticia Campo and @AlistairEaston from our own Translational histopathology lab http://www.cancercentre.ox.ac.uk/centre-support/thl/ to convert these lab findings into something we could see. We used a Multiplex imaging to show how NUC-7738 affected Cheryl's tumour cells.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Cheryl received uninterrupted treatment from the doctors and nurses @EPCTU_Oxford in the Churchill Hospital every week for those 14 months. Particular credit goes to Dr Farasat Kazmi, our clinical fellow.

NUTIDE-701 is ongoing, it is too early to say if it is a game-changing treatment for the future. But it's a reminder that "it takes a village" to treat a cancer patient. We are lucky to be supported and funded by @ECMC_UK , @CR_UK, @OxfordBRC.

Cheryl is one of many cancer patients receiving experimental treatments in our unit, and in other Phase I units dotted around the UK @ECMC. The final message is Biology is Brilliant! Thank you @ITNProductions