Freddie’s Undergraduate Summer Bursary in Prostate Cancer
Freddie Marlowe undertook a Big C funded 8-week undergraduate summer project in Prof. Daniel Brewer’s group based in the Bob Champion Research and Education (BCRE) building, UEA.
His project titled ‘Discovering distinct biological pathways to progression in prostate cancer’ meant he gained experience in cancer research in terms of data science.
The current problem
More than 63,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in the UK (Prostate Cancer UK, 2025), however, not all of them will be necessarily aggressive. Therefore, to prevent unnecessary treatment that often results in life-changing side effects, it is important to accurately determine prognosis, optimise treatment pathways and help develop targeted drugs.
The research
This is where Freddie comes in. To better understand the features linked to prostate cancer aggressiveness and recurrence, during his research project, Freddie used a machine learning model called ‘Random Forest’. A machine learning model is a programme that has been trained on a dataset so that it can recognise patterns, categorise and predict future data.
He applied this model on prostate cancer samples from over 100 patients, which allowed him to distinguish between non-aggressive/aggressive cancers as well as the likelihood of recurrence of the cancer after treatment. He also looked at the changes in genes from both cancerous and normal prostate tissue samples. This revealed that cancer cells had more genes involved in metastasis and reduced normal tissue function.
In a nutshell, these findings help explain why some prostate cancers behave more aggressively than others and may help improve future diagnosis and treatment
Personal Experience
This studentship has helped Freddie further develop his skills such as R coding (a type of computer language), data processing and an understanding for machine learning.
“It has given me the opportunity to apply concepts I have learnt during my degree studies to real research in cancer biology.” This project showed him what academic research entails and how engaging and inspiring it is.
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