Cancer Biology Summer School 2025
Uganda Cancer Institute - Makerere University
29th September - 3rd October 2025
Welcome to the Cambridge UCI Makerere Summer School 2025! This is the third year of the summer school and we are excited to have you join us. The summer school is a collaboration between the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, the Uganda Cancer Institute and Makere University. The summer school was kindly funded by Cambridge Africa, the Alborada Trust and Cancer Research UK.
The programme will include lectures and practical sessions on:
- Cancer Biology
- Cancer Immunology
- Laboratory Techniques for Cancer Research
- Bioinformatics
- Career Guidance
- CV Writing
Instructors and lecturers
In Uganda:
- Maike de la Roche (Cancer Immunology and techniques)
- Adelyne Chan (Cancer Biology and techniques)
- Gideon Nsubuga (Cancer Biology and techniques).
- Ashley Sawle (Bioinformatics)
Online lectures:
- Dr Hana Aliee, Group Leader, CRUK Cambridge Institute (Computational Tumour Biology)
- Professor James Brenton, Senior Group Leader, CRUK Cambridge Institute, Professor of Ovarian Cancer Medicine and Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology (Ovarian Cancer)
- Dr Tim Halim, Senior Group Leader, CRUK Cambridge Institute (Cancer Immunology)
- Professor Greg Hannon, FRS, FMedSci, Royal Society Wolfson Research Professor, Professor of Cancer Molecular Biology, Director, CRUK Cambridge Institute (Metastasis, Spatial Analysis, Vascular Mimicry)
- Professor Masashi Narita, Senior Group Leader, CRUK Cambridge Institute, Professor of Senobiology, within the Department of Oncology of the University of Cambridge
Programme timetable
Note: we will upload video recordings of lectures, where possible, after the course, as they will need some editing first.
Monday 29th September
- 10:30-11:30 - Lecture: “Introduction to bioinformatics” (Ash) [slides]
- 11.30-13:00 - Lecture: “Principles and Applications of quantitative Real-Time PCR” (Maike) [slides]
- 13:00-14:00 - Lunch
- 14:00-15:00 - Keynote Lecture: Professor James Brenton “Genomic instability in high-grade serous ovarian cancer”
- 15:00-17:00 - Applied Bioinformatics training: Introduction to R (Ash)
- 15:00-17:00 - Laboratory Practical: qRT-PCR (Adelyne, Gideon, Maike)
Note: links to all practical materials are at the bottom of the page.
Tuesday 30th September
- 10:00-11:30 - Lecture: “Introduction to Cancer Biology” (Adelyne) [slides]
- 11.30-13:00 - Lecture: “Flow Cytometry” (Maike) [slides]
- 13:00-14:00 - Lunch
- 14:00-15:00 - Keynote Lecture: Professor Masashi Narita “Cellular senescence in cancer and ageing”
- 15:00-17:00 - Applied Bioinformatics training: Introduction to R (Ash)
- 15:00-17:00 - Laboratory Practical: Flow Cytometry (Maike, Gideon)
Wednesday 1st October
- 10:00-11:30 - Lecture: “Introduction to Cancer Immunology” (Maike)
- 11:30-13:00 - Lecture: “Cancer Biology Techniques: Western Blot, ELISA, Immunohistochemistry” (Adelyne, Gideon) [slides]
- 13:00-14:00 - Lunch
- 14:00-15:00 - Keynote Lecture: Dr Hana Aliee “Why our cells are unique and what makes us different: A new perspective through causal generative models”
- 15:00-17:00 - Applied Bioinformatics training: Introduction to R (Ash)
- 15:00-17:00 - Laboratory Practical: Western Blot Part 1
Thursday 2nd October
- 10:00-11:30 - Lecture: “Dissecting pancreatic cancer metastasis” (Gideon)
- 11:30-13:00 - Applied Bioinformatics training: Introduction to R (Ash)
- 13:00-14:00 - Lunch
- 14:00-15:00 - Keynote Lecture: Dr Tim Halim “Innate lymphocytes in cancer”
- 15:00-17:00 - Applied Bioinformatics training: Introduction to R (Ash)
- 15:00-17:00 - Laboratory Practical: Western Blot Part 2
Friday 3rd October
- 10:00-11:30 - Lecture: “Cancer Immunotherapy” (Maike)
- 11:30-13:00 - Career advice workshop: CVs, applications, interviews [slides]
- 13:00-14:00 - Lunch
- 14:00-15:00 - Keynote Lecture: Professor Greg Hannon “Metastasis and vascular mimicry in breast cancer”
- 15:00-16:00 - Personal insights on PhD study in Cambridge and beyond (Gideon, Kamsi, Abel Walekhwa)
- 16:00-17:00 - Group photo and feedback session
Links to the practical course materials
Laboratory protocols
Bioinformatics programme
Additional Bioinformatics resources:
- Cheat sheets for the Tidyverse (and other packages)
These cheat sheets are invaluable resources that will save you countless hours of frustration when learning R! To begin with, download the sheets for:Print them out and keep them nearby for reference whenever you are coding. - Ash
- Differential gene expression analysis with bulk RNAseq data in R - see below for R packages and data.
- Summer School 2024 Precourse instructions - Includes instructions for installing packages and downloading data for the course above.