My Research

I am interested in understanding how molecular imaging biomarkers can be optimally used to monitor the response of tumours to cancer therapy, with a focus on metabolism and the tumour microenvironment.

With the advent of molecular imaging modalities such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET), it has become possible to image changes in cancer at the molecular level. I focus on characterising the link between the changes that are occurring at the molecular level as a result of therapeutic intervention and what is actually observed using molecular imaging, using a combination of 3D in vitro methods and simple mathematical models.

Projects

  • Characterising Changes in Tumour Hypoxia as a Response to PI3K/mTOR/Hexokinase Inhibition.
  • Understanding the relationship between irradiation, tumour cell metabolism and hypoxia.
  • In Vitro Optimisation of [18F]-FDG Imaging to Monitor Response to PI3K/mTOR Inhibition.
  • Investigating the Relationship between Hypoxia and Vascular Structure Collaborator: Dr R Shipley (Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics)

Publications

  • Kelly C J, Hussien K, Shipley R J, Stratford M, Pearson N, Muschel R J. 2012. Pharmacological Inhibitors of PI3K/mTOR cause a reduction in Tumour Metabolism and 3D Hypoxia Independent of Vascular Effects. Submitted for Publication 2012.
  • Kelly C J, Hussien K and Muschel R J. 2012. 3D tumour spheroids as a model to assess the suitability of [18F]FDG-PET as an early indicator of response to PI3K inhibition. Nuclear Medicine & Biology. 2012.
  • Kelly C J, Brady J M and Muschel R J. 2011. Kinetic Modelling of the Hypoxia Marker EF5 in Multicellular Tumour Spheroids and Xenografts. Under revision.
  • Kelly C J, Brady J M and Muschel R J. 2010. Gold Standard Hypoxia Marker? A Comparison of Pimonidazole and EF5 Kinetics in Multicellular Tumour Spheroids. EANM Annual Congress.
  • Bejot R, Kersemans V, Kelly C J, Carroll L, King R C and Gouverneur V. 2010 Pre-clinical evaluation of a 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazole analogue of [18F]FMISO as hypoxia-selective tracer for PET. Nuclear Medicine and Biology In Press
  • Kelly C J, Bernhard E, Koch C, Brady J M and Muschel R J. 2009 A method for quantifying the kinetics of hypoxia tracers using multicellular tumour spheroids. NCRI Cancer Conference.
  • Kelly C J, Smallbone K, and Brady J M. 2008 Tumour Glycolysis: The many faces of HIF. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 254(2):508-13.
  • Kelly C J , Kelly M, Bejot R, Bayly S, Guo Q and Brady J M. 2008. Relating Redox Potential and Partition Coefficient of Hypoxia-Selective 64Cu-ATSM Analogues to PET Tracer Characteristics: A Theoretical Approach. Society of Nuclear Medicine Annual Meeting.
  • Kelly C J and Brady J M. 2006. A model to simulate tumour oxygenation and dynamic [18F]-Fmiso PET data. Phys Med Biol 51:5859-5873.
  • White C J and Brady J M. 2005. A semi-automatic approach to the delineation of tumour boundaries from PET data using level sets. Society of Nuclear Medicine Annual Meeting.
  • Bains W, Basman A and White C. 2004. HERG binding specificity and binding site structure: evidence from a fragment-based evolutionary computing SAR study. Prog Biophys Mol Biol. 86(2):205-33.