Dr Doreen Lau
Lecturer in Inflammation, Ageing and Cancer Biology
Heinz Wolff 227
- Email: doreen.lau@brunel.ac.uk
- Tel: +44 (0)1895 265508
Summary
Dr Doreen Lau is a Lecturer at Brunel University of London and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge. She began her scientific career at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore, where she focused on functional genomics and imaging in developmental biology. She later earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge as a Cancer Research UK and Cambridge Trust Scholar under the co-supervision of Professor Ferdia Gallagher and Professor Klaus Okkenhaug, specialising in cancer immunology and the clinical translation of molecular imaging biomarkers for cancer immunotherapy in both patients and preclinical models.
Dr Lau has a broad interdisciplinary background spanning cancer immunology, pharmacology, and biomedical imaging. She trained in cancer imaging and pharmacology at Imperial College London under the guidance of Professor Eric Aboagye, worked at the University of Oxford on antigen presentation in cancer with Professor Tim Elliott, and served as a Visiting Scientist at AstraZeneca, where she developed tissue-based imaging biomarkers in immuno-oncology. She has contributed to teaching, previously serving as a part-time lecturer at the University of Oxford, where she co-led the Cancer Immunology module and lectured on imaging, disease mechanisms, and cancer treatment on MSc courses.
Her research contributions to cancer immunology and imaging have been recognised with multiple international awards, including the 1st Place William G. Negendank Young Investigator Award in Cancer Imaging (ISMRM, 2018), the Women in Molecular Imaging Network Scholar Award (WMIS, 2019), a Top 3 PhD Award (ESMI, 2021), the Merit Travel Grant and Best Poster Award in Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Development (ESMO, 2023), and the Best Flash Talk in Cancer Immunology (CAMS-Oxford Institute, 2023). In recognition of her achievements as an early-career scientist, she was also elected to a Junior Research Fellowship in Sciences at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, in 2022.
Qualifications
PhD, University of Cambridge, 2016 - 2020, Cancer Immunology and Biomedical Imaging
Master of Research, Imperial College London, 2014 - 2015, Cancer Imaging and Pharmacology
Specialist Diploma, Singapore Polytechnic, 2013 - 2014, Biomedical Engineering
Bachelor of Science, National University of Singapore, 2006 -2009, Life Sciences (Molecular and Cell Biology)
Associate Fellowship in Teaching (AFHEA), Advanced HE, 2022
Responsibility
Principal Investigator at the Centre for Inflammation Research and Translational Medicine
Research and teaching duties at the university
Newest selected publications
Lau, D. and Elliott, T. (2025) 'Imaging Antigen Processing and Presentation in Cancer'. Immunotherapy Advances, 0 (ahead of print). pp. 1 - 42. ISSN: 2732-4303 Open Access Link
Uhl, LFK., Cai, H., Oram, SL., Mahale, JN., MacLean, AJ., Mazet, JM., et al. (2023) 'Interferon-γ couples CD8+ T cell avidity and differentiation during infection'. Nature Communications, 14 (1). pp. 1 - 17. ISSN: 2041-1723 Open Access Link
Chan, CY., Chen, Z., Guibbal, F., Dias, G., Destro, G., O’Neill, E., et al. (2023) '[123I]CC1: A PARP-Targeting, Auger Electron–Emitting Radiopharmaceutical for Radionuclide Therapy of Cancer'. Journal of Nuclear Medicine, 64 (12). pp. 1965 - 1971. ISSN: 0161-5505 Open Access Link
Sugiyarto, G., Lau, D., Hill, SL., Arcia-Anaya, D., Boulanger, DSM., Parkes, EE., et al. (2023) 'Reactivation of low avidity tumor-specific CD8+ T cells associates with immunotherapeutic efficacy of anti-PD-1'. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, 11 (8). pp. 1 - 15. ISSN: 2051-1426 Open Access Link
Lau, D. (2023) 'Imaging Inflammation: A Historical Perspective', in Man, F. and Cleary, SJ. (eds.) Imaging Inflammation. Cham, Switzerland : Springer Nature. , 91. pp. 1 - 21. ISBN 10: 3-031-23661-0. ISBN 13: 978-3-031-23660-0.