Enhancing liquid biopsy with nanoparticles for the detection of oesophageal carcinoma

Project Outline

Liquid biopsies have the potential to transform cancer care by enabling tumour detection and monitoring through a simple blood sample. However, despite major advances, their clinical impact remains limited for many cancers because tumours often release only very small amounts of DNA and proteins into the bloodstream. This creates a fundamental signal-to-noise challenge, where rare cancer-derived molecules are difficult to distinguish from the abundance of material originating from healthy tissues. The problem is also acute in applications such as early cancer detection and minimal residual disease monitoring, where biomarker levels are often extremely low.

Oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) is an aggressive cancer with poor survival rates and increasing incidence in the UK, particularly in the North-West of England. Patients would benefit greatly from liquid biopsies capable of detecting disease earlier and monitoring treatment response. However, the low concentration of tumour derived biomarkers in blood has limited the development of clinically useful liquid biopsy for OAC.

Rather than passively measuring biomarkers already present in blood, we will expand an innovative approach to develop lipid-based nanoparticles that act as molecular modulators, actively capturing and concentrating cell-free DNA. By enriching these biomarkers before blood collection or analysis we aim to amplify the tumour signal and improve the sensitivity of existing liquid biopsy technologies. The project builds on pioneering worksfrom the supervisory team demonstrating that engineered nanoparticles can efficiently recover circulating biomolecules and generate highly informative molecular profiles from blood.

The PhD student will design and optimise nanoparticles, evaluate their performance in laboratory and animal models, and validate the technology using banked clinical samples from patients with oesophageal cancer treated at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in biomedical sciences, molecular biology, biotechnology, bioengineering, or related disciplines, with an interest in cancer research, nanomedicine, genomics, and translational science.

Applications for this project are now open. Please complete your application on The University of Manchester website.