Contact: r.r.roylance@qmul.ac.uk

Professional interests

Dr Roylance joined the Institute of Cancer in October 2006 funded by a national HEFCE 'New Blood' Senior Lecturer award. After general medical training she completed a PhD on the molecular genetic analysis of breast cancers at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK London Research Institute). She completed specialist training in medical oncology on the North London rotation (UCLH and Royal Free Hospitals) while undertaking a CR-UK funded clinician scientist fellowship in Professor Ian Tomlinson's laboratory at the London Research Institute. This work focused on the identification of the tumour suppressor gene(s) on 16q in low-grade invasive breast cancer and the molecular genetic pathways of breast tumorigenesis.

Her current research continues to focus on understanding the different genetic changes associated with different morphological subtypes of invasive breast cancer. In addition, the group are now focussing on genetic susceptibility to both lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and trying to identify pathways of progression from in situ to invasive disease in collaboration with Dr Elinor Sawyer. Finally, in the transTACT collaboration they are investigating mechanisms of taxane resistance in a cohort of breast cancers from the TACT clinical trial.

Research Team:

Ms Patricia Gorman	Research Assistant, co-supervised with Charles Swanton CR-UK
Ms Kelly Kohut	GLACIER Clinical Trial Co-ordinator
Ms Hinal Patel	Clinical Trials Research Assistant

 

Funding:

HEFCE 'New Blood' Senior Lecturer award 2006-2011 c. £250000

Cancer Research UK Project Grant 2007-2010, £210000 "GLACIER - A study to investigate the Genetics of LobulAr Carcinoma In situ in EuRope" (Joint PI)

Cancer Research UK Project Grant 2008-2011, £250000  “ICICLE – An Investigation of the genetiCs of In situ Carcinoma of the ductaL subtypE” (Joint PI)

Breast Cancer Campaign Pilot Grant 2008-2009, £15000 “Molecular Characterisation of Lobular Carcinoma in situ” (Joint PI)

Recent Publications:

• Avril N, Sassen S, Roylance R. Therapy response in Breast Cancer. Journal of Nuclear Medicine 2009;in press.
• Segditsas S, Rowan AJ, Howarth K, Jones A, Leedham S, Wright NA, Gorman P, Chambers W, Domingo E, Roylance RR, Sawyer EJ, Sieber OM, Tomlinson IP. APC and the three-hit hypothesis. Oncogene 2009;28(1):146-65.
• Kilburn LS; TNT Trial Management Group. ‘Triple Negative’ breast cancer: a new area for phase III breast cancer clinical trials. Clin Oncol 2008;20(1):35-9.
• Avril N, Mather S, Roylance R. FDG-PET and PET/CT in Breast Cancer Follow up. Breast Care 2007;2:372-7.
• Roylance R, Seddon B, McTiernan A, Sykes K, Daniels S, Whelan J. Experience of the use of Trabectedin (ET-743, Yondelis™ ) in twenty-one patients with pretreated advanced sarcoma from a single centre. Clin Oncol 2007;19(8):572-6
• Gaasenbeek M, Howarth K, Rowan AJ, Gorman PA, Jones A, Chaplin T, Liu Y, Bicknell D, Davison EJ, Fiegler H, Carter NP, Roylance RR, Tomlinson IPM. Combined array-comparative genomic hybridisation and single-nucleotide polymorphism-loss of heterozygosity analysis reveals complex changes and multiple forms of chromosomal instability in colorectal cancers. Cancer Res 2006;66(7):3471-9
• Rakha EA, Green AR, Powe DG, Roylance R, Ellis IO. Chromosome 16 tumour suppressor genes in breast cancer. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 2006; 45(6):527-35
• Roylance R, Jones A. Monoclonal antibodies in the adjuvant treatment of cancer. Cancer and Chemotherapy Rev 2006;1(2):70-7
• Roylance R, Gorman P, Papior T, Wan Y-L, Ives M, Watson JEV, Colin Collins C, Wortham N, Langford C, Fiegler H, Carter N, Gillett C, Sasieni P, Pinder S, Hanby A, Tomlinson IPM. A comprehensive analysis of 16q in invasive ductal and lobular breast carcinoma, using array CGH. Oncogene 2006;25(49):6544-53
• Jones AM, Douglas EJ, Halford SER, Fiegler H, Gorman PA, Roylance RR, Carter NP, Tomlinson IPM. Array-CGH analysis of microsatellite-stable, near-diploid bowel cancers and comparison with other types of colorectal carcinoma. Oncogene 2005;24(1):118-29
• Lambros MBK, Fiegler H, Jones A, Gorman P, Roylance R, Carter NP, Tomlinson IPM. Analysis of ovarian cancer cell lines using array-based comparative genomic hybridisation identifies pathways of tumorigenesis and locations of candidate genes for carcinogenesis. J Pathol 2005;205(1):29-40

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