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
- Maike de la Roche (Cancer Immunology and techniques)
- Adelyne Chan (Cancer Biology and techniques)
- Gideon Nsubuga (Cancer Biology and techniques).
- Ashley Sawle (Bioinformatics)
- 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
Note: we will upload video recordings of lectures, where possible, after the course, as they will need some editing first.
- 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]](lecture_slides/qPCR lecture_Cancer Biology Summer School Kampala 2025_final.pdf)
- 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.
- 10:00-11:30 - Lecture: "Introduction to Cancer Biology" (Adelyne) [slides]
- 11.30-13:00 - Lecture: "Flow Cytometry" (Maike) [[slides]](lecture_slides/Flow Cytometry lecture 2025_Maike de la Roche_final.pdf)
- 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)
- 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
- 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
- 10:00-11:30 - Lecture: "Cancer Immunotherapy" (Maike)
- 11:30-13:00 - Career advice workshop: CVs, applications, interviews [[slides]](lecture_slides/JUL25 Cancer Biology Summer School_CV and career advice talk_final.pdf)
- 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
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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
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Differential gene expression analysis with bulk RNAseq data in R - see below for R packages and data.
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Summer School 2024 Precourse instructions - Includes instructions for installing packages and downloading data for the course above.