Lab alumni

Gehad Youssef, PhD - Postdoctoral Fellow

Gehad studied cancer stem cell heterogeneity in oral and breast cancer using 2D and 3D in vitro models. His main focus was on identifying plastic EMT stem cells in FFPE tissue, deriving these cells from patient biopsies and using machine learning to create a classifer to predict recurrence using protein expression derived from immunofluorescence staining.

Gehad obtained a BSc in molecular genetics from King's College London (KCL) then his masters (MRes in Biomedicine) at University College London (UCL) . Gehad then did his PhD at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in the laboratory of Dr Ryan O'Shaughnessy to investigate signalling pathways in autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis. Gehad also spend time in Professor John Anderson's laboratory working with Dr Ximena Montano to evaluate prognostic markers in neuroblastoma and at the UCL Cancer Institute investigating the role of DNA methyltransferases in embryonic stem cells. Gehad joined the Biddle lab in 2017. He left in 2021 to take up a second postdoctoral position at the Milner Institute in Cambridge.

Interests:

Cancer stem cells
EMT and developmental plasticity
Machine learning and statistics
Drug resistance

Leah Palmer - PhD student

Leah studied cancer stem cells in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Accumulating evidence suggests that cancer stem cells drive the metastatic spread of tumours. Metastasis is considered to be the primary predictor of outcome in OSCC cases, and is an important factor in treatment decisions, but it is currently very difficult to predict which tumours will develop metastases. During Leah’s 3 year PhD project she developed a test for metastatic cancer stem cells which allows us to discriminate between tumours which are likely to spread and those that are not, allowing us to identify the highest risk patients and tailor their treatment accordingly.

Leah obtained a BSc in Biomedical sciences from the University of Kent, before studying for an MSc in Cancer, Molecular Pathology and Genomics at Queen Mary University of London. Leah then spent two years working on CAR-T therapies for rare childhood brain tumours at University college London, before starting her PhD in the Biddle lab. Leah passed her PhD viva in early 2022!

Alice Scemama - PhD student

During Alice’s 3 year PhD project, she developed a metastasis-on-a-chip model for oral squamous cell carcinoma. Through this model, Alice studied in 3D the interactions between cancer cells and endothelial cells. Furthermore, Alice characterised the phenotypes of the cancer cells driving the metastasis process. Alice's project is a collaboration with http://biointerfaces.qmul.ac.uk/.

Alice obtained a BSc in Genetics from University College London before studying for an MSc in Applied Biosciences and Biotechnology at Imperial College London. Before starting her PhD at Queen Mary University of London, Alice worked for one year within Bayer UK’s oncology medical affairs department. Alice passed her PhD viva at the end of 2022!

Sophia Lunetto - PhD student

Sophia is a member of the BBSRC London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme. She is researching the heterogenous modes of migration in oral squamous cell carcinoma, and how these overlay onto cancer stem cell identities. This involves combining computational methods, such as network analysis, with an in vitro metastasis-on-a-chip model. Sophia aims to probe the response to paracrine and juxtacrine signalling environments within this model, particularly the effects of IGF, TGFβ, and Notch pathways, to elucidate cancer stem cell driven mechanisms of single cell and collective invasion. Sophia's project is a collaboration with www.sanz-moreno-lab.co.uk/.

Sophia obtained a BSc in Biotechnology at the Technical University of Berlin, while working at Cellbricks, a Bioprinting start-up. Afterwards, she pursued her MSc in Bioengineering at Imperial College London specialising in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering before joining us for her PhD. Sophia passed her PhD viva at the start of 2025, and stayed with us for a short postdoc until September 2025 when she moved to take up a postdoctoral position at the ICR.

Momita Bhuiyan - PhD student

Momita's PhD project focuses on modelling an in-vitro, animal-free model of the Lymph Node (LN) to investigate Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) metastasis in LNs. She will be using hydrogels made of matrix-free, self-assembling peptides which provide a user-defined 3D environment with independent control of different properties such as stiffness and addition of matrix and cells of interest. Momita aims to apply computational methods on available OSCC and LN datasets and use pathological LN tissue slides to identify, and subsequently investigate genes and proteins of interest in the model. Momita's project is in collaboration with Dr Mirjana Efremova and funded by AFRUK and QMUL.

Momita obtained a BSc in Biomedical Sciences in 2019 followed by a MRes in ‘Biomedical Sciences and Translational Medicine’ in 2020 from the University of Liverpool (UoL). She then worked as a lab and teaching technician at UoL, before starting her PhD with us in 2022. Momita passed her PhD viva in early 2026!

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