Joe Sims

Research Topic: Spatial Data Mining in Histopathology

Supervisors: Dr Heike Grabsch, Dr Derek Magee

About Joe: Before joining the CDT, Joe graduated with a masters in Astrophysics from Liverpool.

Project description: If you are diagnosed with stage II/stage IIIb gastric cancer and live Japan, you will most certainly be treated with surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. In many countries, it is common practice to undergo this treatment without question, but what if a subset of patients were able to recover from surgery alone without the addition of chemotherapy? As part of the CLASSIC Trial, hundreds of tissue samples containing tumour were extracted from patients with stage II/stage IIIb gastric cancer, half of which received surgery and the other half received surgery and chemotherapy. Using a combination of deep learning and spatial analytical techniques, we aim to identify the patients who won’t benefit from the addition of chemotherapy and provide a pathological explanation as a result.