We recently had a visit from Min from Bowel Research UK, and had the chance to show off some of the exciting work we've been doing with their funding support. We were able to showcase the work done by Sonia during her BRUK-funded PhD, and ongoing work by Alex as we explore bowel cancer recurrence on her BRUK-funded PhD project. Always happy to host the BRUK team, and have the chance to showcase our labs and our BRUK-funded research, you can read the Q&A here. A good week for the team, with publication of work driven by MSc students Otman and Dallal on using patient-derived EVs to deliver chemotherapeutics which you can access here.

Fantastic meeting in Bruges discussing all things host-mcicrobe. Myself and Dr Lewis Quayle of Sheffield Cancer Bioinformatics presented an update on our EV-microbe story, showing our characterisation of e. coli behavioural changes, disruptions to metal ion homeostasis, and predicted roles of EV miRNA-e. coli transcriptome interactions identified through Lewis' "Nextflow" cross-species bioinformatics platform.

Alex and Emily from the team were invited to observe surgery at the Northern General Hospital by our clinical colleague Mr Keith Chapple. They spoke to the patient before surgery which Emily says "was very emotional and puts into perspective how important the work we do is".

 Another productive year draws to an end, so we wrapped up warm and went to say "cheers" at the Sheffield Christmas market.

Its been a busy year, time for a break!

The 2025 UKEV annual forum was held in Oxford, in The Andrew Wile Building at the Mathematical Institute.

Nick presented work stemming from projects by Rawan Maani and Lewis Quayle, who have shown how bowel cancer EVs alter microbial behaviour - and how this might happen.

Alex presented a wonderful poster showcasing her BRUK-funded work on organoids, TG2 inhibitors and the release of EVs showing stem cell-like markers from these models.