03 Jul 2025

Dr Vinaya Gunasri

NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Histopathology

University College London

Reflections and Future Directions

I’m deeply honoured to have been selected as the inaugural recipient of the British Association for Cancer Research (BACR) Early Career Award 2025. This recognition is a significant milestone in my professional journey, and I extend my sincere thanks to the BACR and the award committee for this incredible opportunity. In this post, I reflect on what this award means to me and share my aspirations as a cancer researcher.

Clinical Foundations: A Pathologist’s Eye

After studying pre-clinical medicine at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and clinical medicine at University College London, I trained as a junior doctor and entered histopathology training within the London Deanery. From the start, histopathology felt like the perfect fit: deeply visual, analytically challenging, and central to patient care.

I often think of William Blake’s line from Auguries of Innocence:

“To see a world in a grain of sand.”

As pathologists, we examine microscopic tissue and infer life-altering truths: What is the diagnosis? How advanced is the disease? What can we say about prognosis?

Diagnosing cancer, infections, and inflammatory conditions sharpened my attention to biological detail — but raised deeper questions. How does cancer evolve as it invades healthy tissue? Why are some tumours densely infiltrated by immune cells while others are not?

These questions drew me toward academic medicine. I approached Professor Adrienne Flanagan at UCL, who encouraged me to pursue academic histopathology. I remain deeply grateful for her mentorship and continued support throughout my career.

Research Training: Tumour–Immune Interactions

In 2019, I was awarded a Cancer Research UK Clinical Research Training Fellowship to undertake a PhD at Barts Cancer Institute under the supervision of Professor Trevor Graham. My research focused on how the immune system constrains colorectal cancer, especially at the tumour’s invasive front — where tumour cells push into healthy tissue.

Using spatial profiling techniques on patient samples, we uncovered a striking insight: the immune system actively eliminates small clusters (subclones) of tumour cells at the invasive margin, while sparing the tumour bulk.

These findings had important clinical implications and received notable recognition:

• Selected for a plenary oral presentation at Digestive Disease Week 2023 — a rare platform for an early-career researcher
• Presented at the British Society of Gastroenterology Annual Meeting
• Joint first-author publication accepted in Nature Genetics (preprint available here)

I also contributed to high-impact studies published in Nature and Nature Cancer.

Working in Professor Graham’s diverse lab — combining computational scientists, lab researchers, and clinicians — was energising. I was fortunate to collaborate closely with Dr Eszter Lakatos, an outstanding researcher and co–first author, now Assistant Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Our conversations helped shape the direction of our shared work, exploring the rich interface of mathematics and cancer biology.

These experiences solidified my identity as a clinician–scientist and deepened my passion for discovery.

Broadening Impact: Community and Communication

Throughout my research career, I’ve felt a strong responsibility to connect science with society.

During the pandemic, I led a community engagement initiative to improve bowel cancer screening uptake in South Asian communities in the UK. We translated screening videos into Bengali and Urdu to overcome language barriers and improve health literacy (see project here). The project received national attention and won The Royal College of Pathologists’ Science Communication Prize (2022).

I also won the Vitae 3-Minute Thesis “People’s Choice” Award (2020) for a national public-facing research presentation. These moments reinforced my belief that impactful research isn’t just about citations — it’s also about accessibility, equity, and engagement.

From PhD to Clinical Lecturer: Building My Own Group

In November 2023, I joined UCL as an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Histopathology. My lectureship is funded by the Jean Shanks Foundation and the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

I now divide my time between:

• Diagnosing disease as an NHS pathologist, specialising in gastrointestinal pathology
• Establishing a research group at the UCL Cancer Institute, focusing on microbiome–immune–tumour interactions in bowel cancer

My current research examines how microbial communities evolve across the spectrum — from normal tissue to polyps to invasive colorectal cancer — and how they interact with immune cells in space. By collecting matched tissue samples, we aim to identify microbial and immune signatures that could act as biomarkers or therapeutic targets.

I work closely with Professor Marnix Jansen, a fellow gastrointestinal pathologist at UCL. Collaborating within a vibrant academic pathology network committed to translating insights into practice has been both motivating and rewarding.

Mentorship, Funding, and Future Vision

One of the most fulfilling parts of my role has been mentoring early-career researchers. I’ve recently recruited a histopathology trainee funded by a pre-doctoral bursary — an exciting step toward building a collaborative and high-performing lab culture. My aim is to foster an environment where clinical insight and scientific creativity thrive together.

To date, I’ve secured over £650,000 in research funding as a principal investigator. These funds have supported interdisciplinary projects, pilot studies and research staff recruitment — all building toward an integrated translational research programme.

This phase of my career has opened new leadership opportunities. I co-chaired the “Immunology and Pathology” working group at the 7th Annual European Hereditary Tumour Group (EHTG) Meeting and have served as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Pathology. Using my skills to support the broader scientific community has been both fulfilling and energising.

My long-term goal is to become a clinician–scientist who integrates histopathology, microbiomics, and spatial biology to transform how we understand — and ultimately prevent — colorectal cancer.

Looking Forward: Gratitude and Goals

Receiving the BACR Early Career Award is more than a personal achievement — it’s a tribute to the people and partnerships that have shaped this journey. I’m deeply grateful to my mentors, collaborators, funders, and the patients whose samples and stories underpin my research.

I’m particularly thrilled to have received this award within two years of completing my PhD — a meaningful validation at this early stage.

Looking ahead, I remain committed to:

• Using pathology not just as a diagnostic specialty, but as a lens to understand cancer biology in its fullest complexity
• Advancing translational research that directly improves patient outcomes
• Building an inclusive and collaborative research group

In a world where both science and medicine face pressing challenges, I find optimism in the intersections — where lab meets clinic, microbiome meets immune cell, and research meets community.

Thank you to the BACR for this incredible recognition — and for championing early-career researchers across the UK.

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