癌症生物学部门（临床前肿瘤学）的研究具有转化性，涉及与临床医生和行业的紧密合作。当前的研究领域包括使用报告基因构建体对肿瘤内的关键生物学参数进行成像，例如生长，凋亡，血管生成和转移途径以及干细胞进化，对肿瘤微环境进行建模，包括上皮-间质转化过程，旁分泌相互作用的分析。包括HGF / c-met，Hedgehog和成纤维细胞生长因子在内的肿瘤进展，使用非病毒和病毒递送系统进行靶标验证的siRNA的输送，中药的临床前验证/靶标的确定，β-连环蛋白控制肠的贡献干细胞相关的同源域转录因子与癌变有关，并且抑癌基因F
Research in the Cancer Biology Unit (Pre-Clinical Oncology) is translational and involves strong collaborations with clinicians and industry. Current research areas include use of reporter constructs for the imaging of key biological parameters within tumours, such as growth, apoptosis, angiogenesis and metastatic pathways and stem cell evolution, modelling the tumour microenvironment including the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, analysis of paracrine interactions in tumour progression including HGF/c-met, Hedgehog, and Fibroblast growth factors, delivery of siRNAs using non-viral and viral delivery systems for target validation, pre clinical validation/target identification of traditional Chinese medicines, contribution of -catenin controlled intestinal stem-cell associated homeodomain transcription factors to carcinogenesis and the involvement of the tumour suppressor gene, FBW7 a ubiquitin ligase, in intestinal malignant progression. This research portfolio is undertaken by a team of 15 lecturers, research nurses, research fellows and post-doctoral research scientists with funding from Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), and industry.