King's College London - prof. Tony Ng

King’s College London

The King’s College London (KCL) is an interdisciplinary public research university established in 1829. KCL is the largest European centre for graduate and post-graduate medical teaching and biomedical research, by number of students. Currently KCL has student community with almost 30,000 students from some 150 countries worldwide. KCL is the founding partner of FutureLearn, a massive open online course learning platform founded in December 2012. King’s College London has recently been ranked 36th university by The World University Rankings with the best scores related to research citations and international outlook. It is also ranked the 6th university in UK (according to the Research Excellence Framework) for the power and excellence of research.  King’s College London is a member of prestigious academic organisations including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, European University Association, and the Russel Group. King's is a founding member of Global Medical Excellence Cluster (GMEC), the largest life science bio-cluster in the world established with the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London. KCL is home to six Medical  Research Council centres and is a founding member of the Francis Crick Institute and MedCity. MedCity is the collaboration between KCL and the other two main science universities in London, Imperial College and UCL, comprising the London part of the “golden triangle”.

 

Prof. Tony Ng

Research interest

  • cancer cell motility imaging using FRET/FLIM technology (Fluorescence resonance energy transfer/ Fluorescence lifetime imaging);
  • metastasis mechanisms;
  • tumour immunology;
  • protein interaction network;
  • inhibition of selected cancer-related receptors

Professor Tony Ng has gained a broad training/expertise in medicine, immunology, cancer cell biology, biochemistry, optical imaging and cell biophysics. The combination of both the clinical and scientific background allows him to adopt a multidisciplinary approaches in order to understand the mechanisms of cancer metastasis. Professor Ng leads numerous collaborations and a multidisciplinary research team at King’s College London (KCL) in order to bring a broad spectrum of knowledge in biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics to the field of translational cancer research. By joining forces with other teams, Professor Ng’s findings can be rapidly translated from the lab into the clinic.

Professor Ng is a pioneer of unique combination approach for clinical studies consisting of molecular imaging (at multiple length scales/resolutions, from whole body to nanoscopic imaging), with an emphasis on developing a translationally-oriented Imaging-OMIC combination approach. He has developed a quantitative platform for cell and tumour analysis to be used in cancer diagnosis and optimization of patient’s treatment. In addition, the application of antibody-based FRET approaches and the development of radionuclide imaging tracers against targeted molecules allows Professor Ng to monitor protein modifications and formation of complexes specific for different types of cancer as well as their impact at a whole body level. Prof. Ng’s leadership contributed significantly to the development of a Comprehensive Cancer Imaging Centre bringing together the multidisciplinary research teams from KCL and the University College London (UCL) in order to link the cancer imaging to genomics. The imaging-genomic-protein network combination approach allows to personalize the cancer treatment.

Most recently, the findings of Prof. Ng significantly contributed to the field of extracellular vesicles in oncology. He successfully combined the tissue analysis and circulating Exosome-based omics with the use of clinical imaging to individualize cancer treatment. His team has shown that exosomal HER receptor measurements can contribute significantly to the prediction of a favourable treatment response for head and neck cancer patients. His team also demonstrated that exosomal checkpoint molecule PD-L1 is part of a tightly regulated immune surveillance mechanism in breast and lung cancers.

Biography

Tony Ng obtained his Medical Degree from University of Aberdeen, Scotland and PhD in Immunology from Medical College of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. The broad education of Dr. Ng was further supported by the Fellowship of The Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath) and the Membership of Royal College of Physicians (MRCP). He joined the King’s College London as a Group Leader in 2000. Since 2008 Prof. Ng has directed the CRUK-funded KCL-UCL Comprehensive Cancer Imaging Centre. In 2013 Prof. Ng was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) and in 2017 was elected to the European Academy of Cancer Sciences. These prestigious awards were given in recognition of his excellence in multidisciplinary research and contribution to the innovative application of scientific knowledge in medicine.

Currently Prof. Ng holds numerous responsibilities, such as the Head of Comprehensive Cancer Centre/Joint Head of School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Sciences/Richard Dimbleby Professor of Cancer Research, King’s College London and Professor of Molecular Oncology at UCL Cancer Institute. He is also the CRUK City of London Centre Executive Board Member (https://www.colcc.ac.uk/our-organisation/). In addition, he leads the Tumour Immunology imaging project within the Breast Cancer Now Unit at KCL (http://breastcancernow.org/breast-cancer-research/our-research-projects/triple-negative-breast-cancer-tumour-immune-stromal).

Research team members

  • Deng, Jinhai
  • Dr Alfano, Giovanna
  • Dr Gomez, Valenti (UCL)
  • Dr Mustapha, Rami
  • Dr Monypenny of Pitmilly, James
  • Dr Vicencio Bustamante, Jose Miguel
  • Wong, Felix
  • Dr Weitsman, Gregory
  • Dr Gordon, Peter
  • Dr Barber, Paul
  • Dr Ng, Kenrick (UCL)
  • Dr Zhengwen, Wenny
  • Dr Dolcetti, Luigi
  • Zabinski, Tomasz
  • Dr Nuo En (Julie) Chan

 

Publications (last 10 years)

  • Li BT, Michelini F, Misale S, Cocco E, Baldino L, Cai Y, Shifman S, Tu HY, Myers ML, Xu C, et al.: HER2-Mediated Internalization of Cytotoxic Agents in ERBB2 Amplified or Mutant Lung Cancers. Cancer Discov 2020.
  • Cho HJ, Switzer CH, Kamynina A, Charles R, Rudyk O, Ng T, Burgoyne JR, Eaton P: Complex interrelationships between nitro-alkene-dependent inhibition of soluble epoxide hydrolase, inflammation and tumor growth. Redox Biol 2020, 29:101405.
  • Evans R, Flores-Borja F, Nassiri S, Miranda E, Lawler K, Grigoriadis A, Monypenny J, Gillet C, Owen J, Gordon P, et al.: Integrin-Mediated Macrophage Adhesion Promotes Lymphovascular Dissemination in Breast Cancer. Cell Rep 2019, 27:1967-1978 e1964.
  • Barber PR, Weitsman G, Lawler K, Barrett J, Rowley M, Rodriguez-Justo M, Fisher D, Gao F, Tullis IDC, Deng J, et al.: HER2-HER3 heterodimer quantification by FRET-FLIM and patient subclass analysis of the COIN colorectal trial. J Natl Cancer Inst 2019.
  •  An Z, Flores-Borja F, Irshad S, Deng J, Ng T: Pleiotropic Role and Bidirectional Immunomodulation of Innate Lymphoid Cells in Cancer. Front Immunol 2019, 10:3111.
  • Adeleke S, Latifoltojar A, Sidhu H, Galazi M, Shah TT, Clemente J, Davda R, Payne HA, Chouhan MD, Lioumi M, et al.: Localising occult prostate cancer metastasis with advanced imaging techniques (LOCATE trial): a prospective cohort, observational diagnostic accuracy trial investigating whole-body magnetic resonance imaging in radio-recurrent prostate cancer. BMC Med Imaging 2019, 19:90.
  • Muliaditan T, Caron J, Okesola M, Opzoomer JW, Kosti P, Georgouli M, Gordon P, Lall S, Kuzeva DM, Pedro L, et al.: Macrophages are exploited from an innate wound healing response to facilitate cancer metastasis. Nat Commun 2018, 9:2951.
  • Monypenny J, Milewicz H, Flores-Borja F, Weitsman G, Cheung A, Chowdhury R, Burgoyne T, Arulappu A, Lawler K, Barber PR, et al.: ALIX Regulates Tumor-Mediated Immunosuppression by Controlling EGFR Activity and PD-L1 Presentation. Cell Rep 2018, 24:630-641.
  • Johndrow CT, Goldberg MF, Johnson AJ, Ng TW, Kunnath-Velayudhan S, Lauvau G, Kaplan DH, Gossel GH, Kadolsky UD, Yates AJ, et al.: Suppression of Th1 Priming by TLR2 Agonists during Cutaneous Immunization Is Mediated by Recruited CCR2(+) Monocytes. J Immunol 2018, 201:3604-3616.
  • Helfen A, Roth J, Ng T, Eisenblaetter M: In Vivo Imaging of Pro- and Antitumoral Cellular Components of the Tumor Microenvironment. J Nucl Med 2018, 59:183-188.
  • Claus J, Patel G, Autore F, Colomba A, Weitsman G, Soliman TN, Roberts S, Zanetti-Domingues LC, Hirsch M, Collu F, et al.: Inhibitor-induced HER2-HER3 heterodimerisation promotes proliferation through a novel dimer interface. Elife 2018, 7.
  • Zhang R, Fruhwirth GO, Coban O, Barrett JE, Burgoyne T, Lee SH, Simonson PD, Baday M, Kholodenko BN, Futter CE, et al.: Probing the Heterogeneity of Protein Kinase Activation in Cells by Super-resolution Microscopy. ACS Nano 2017, 11:249-257.
  • Weitsman G, Mitchell NJ, Evans R, Cheung A, Kalber TL, Bofinger R, Fruhwirth GO, Keppler M, Wright ZVF, Barber PR, et al.: Detecting intratumoral heterogeneity of EGFR activity by liposome-based in vivo transfection of a fluorescent biosensor. Oncogene 2017, 36:3618-3628.
  • Suh YE, Lawler K, Henley-Smith R, Pike L, Leek R, Barrington S, Odell EW, Ng T, Pezzella F, Guerrero-Urbano T, et al.: Association between hypoxic volume and underlying hypoxia-induced gene expression in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. Br J Cancer 2017, 116:1057-1064.
  • Ortiz-Zapater E, Lee RW, Owen W, Weitsman G, Fruhwirth G, Dunn RG, Neat MJ, McCaughan F, Parker P, Ng T, et al.: MET-EGFR dimerization in lung adenocarcinoma is dependent on EGFR mtations and altered by MET kinase inhibition. PLoS One 2017, 12:e0170798.
  • Lawler K, Papouli E, Naceur-Lombardelli C, Mera A, Ougham K, Tutt A, Kimbung S, Hedenfalk I, Zhan J, Zhang H, et al.: Gene expression modules in primary breast cancers as risk factors for organotropic patterns of first metastatic spread: a case control study. Breast Cancer Res 2017, 19:113.
  • Kwo PY, Poordad F, Asatryan A, Wang S, Wyles DL, Hassanein T, Felizarta F, Sulkowski MS, Gane E, Maliakkal B, et al.: Glecaprevir and pibrentasvir yield high response rates in patients with HCV genotype 1-6 without cirrhosis. J Hepatol 2017, 67:263-271.
  • Irshad S, Flores-Borja F, Lawler K, Monypenny J, Evans R, Male V, Gordon P, Cheung A, Gazinska P, Noor F, et al.: RORgammat(+) Innate Lymphoid Cells Promote Lymph Node Metastasis of Breast Cancers. Cancer Res 2017, 77:1083-1096.
  • Eisenblaetter M, Flores-Borja F, Lee JJ, Wefers C, Smith H, Hueting R, Cooper MS, Blower PJ, Patel D, Rodriguez-Justo M, et al.: Visualization of Tumor-Immune Interaction - Target-Specific Imaging of S100A8/A9 Reveals Pre-Metastatic Niche Establishment. Theranostics 2017, 7:2392-2401.
  • Diocou S, Volpe A, Jauregui-Osoro M, Boudjemeline M, Chuamsaamarkkee K, Man F, Blower PJ, Ng T, Mullen GED, Fruhwirth GO: [(18)F]tetrafluoroborate-PET/CT enables sensitive tumor and metastasis in vivo imaging in a sodium iodide symporter-expressing tumor model. Sci Rep 2017, 7:946.
  • Bosch-Vilaro A, Jacobs B, Pomella V, Abbasi Asbagh L, Kirkland R, Michel J, Singh S, Liu X, Kim P, Weitsman G, et al.: Feedback activation of HER3 attenuates response to EGFR inhibitors in colon cancer cells. Oncotarget 2017, 8:4277-4288.
  • Wulaningsih W, Holmberg L, Ng T, Rohrmann S, Van Hemelrijck M: Serum leptin, C-reactive protein, and cancer mortality in the NHANES III. Cancer Med 2016, 5:120-128.
  • Wulaningsih W, Holmberg L, Garmo H, Karagiannis SN, Ahlstedt S, Malmstrom H, Lambe M, Hammar N, Walldius G, Jungner I, et al.: Investigating the association between allergen-specific immunoglobulin E, cancer risk and survival. Oncoimmunology 2016, 5:e1154250.
  • Wulaningsih W, Holmberg L, Abeler-Doner L, Ng T, Rohrmann S, Van Hemelrijck M: Associations of C-Reactive Protein, Granulocytes and Granulocyte-to-Lymphocyte Ratio with Mortality from Breast Cancer in Non-Institutionalized American Women. PLoS One 2016, 11:e0157482.
  • Weitsman G, Barber PR, Nguyen LK, Lawler K, Patel G, Woodman N, Kelleher MT, Pinder SE, Rowley M, Ellis PA, et al.: HER2-HER3 dimer quantification by FLIM-FRET predicts breast cancer metastatic relapse independently of HER2 IHC status. Oncotarget 2016, 7:51012-51026.
  • Kucharski TJ, Ng TF, Sharon DM, Navid-Azarbaijani P, Tavassoli M, Teodoro JG: Activation of the Chicken Anemia Virus Apoptin Protein by Chk1/2 Phosphorylation Is Required for Apoptotic Activity and Efficient Viral Replication. J Virol 2016, 90:9433-9445.
  • Flores-Borja F, Irshad S, Gordon P, Wong F, Sheriff I, Tutt A, Ng T: Crosstalk between Innate Lymphoid Cells and Other Immune Cells in the Tumor Microenvironment. J Immunol Res 2016, 2016:7803091.
  • Arulappu A, Battle M, Eisenblaetter M, McRobbie G, Khan I, Monypenny J, Weitsman G, Galazi M, Hoppmann S, Gazinska P, et al.: c-Met PET Imaging Detects Early-Stage Locoregional Recurrence of Basal-Like Breast Cancer. J Nucl Med 2016, 57:765-770.
  • Wulaningsih W, Holmberg L, Garmo H, Malmstrom H, Lambe M, Hammar N, Walldius G, Jungner I, Ng T, Van Hemelrijck M: Serum lactate dehydrogenase and survival following cancer diagnosis. Br J Cancer 2015, 113:1389-1396.
  • Poland SP, Krstajic N, Monypenny J, Coelho S, Tyndall D, Walker RJ, Devauges V, Richardson J, Dutton N, Barber P, et al.: A high speed multifocal multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging microscope for live-cell FRET imaging. Biomed Opt Express 2015, 6:277-296.
  • Nuciforo P, Radosevic-Robin N, Ng T, Scaltriti M: Quantification of HER family receptors in breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res 2015, 17:53.
  • Nedbal J, Visitkul V, Ortiz-Zapater E, Weitsman G, Chana P, Matthews DR, Ng T, Ameer-Beg SM: Time-domain microfluidic fluorescence lifetime flow cytometry for high-throughput Forster resonance energy transfer screening. Cytometry A 2015, 87:104-118.
  • Fang EF, Scheibye-Knudsen M, Jahn HJ, Li J, Ling L, Guo H, Zhu X, Preedy V, Lu H, Bohr VA, et al.: A research agenda for aging in China in the 21st century. Ageing Res Rev 2015, 24:197-205.
  • Coban O, Zanetti-Dominguez LC, Matthews DR, Rolfe DJ, Weitsman G, Barber PR, Barbeau J, Devauges V, Kampmeier F, Winn M, et al.: Effect of phosphorylation on EGFR dimer stability probed by single-molecule dynamics and FRET/FLIM. Biophys J 2015, 108:1013-1026.
  • Cade NI, Fruhwirth GO, Krasavin AV, Ng T, Richards D: Fluorescence axial nanotomography with plasmonics. Faraday Discuss 2015, 178:371-381.
  • Burgoyne JR, Rudyk O, Cho HJ, Prysyazhna O, Hathaway N, Weeks A, Evans R, Ng T, Schroder K, Brandes RP, et al.: Deficient angiogenesis in redox-dead Cys17Ser PKARIalpha knock-in mice. Nat Commun 2015, 6:7920.
  • Bullenkamp J, Gaken J, Festy F, Chong EZ, Ng T, Tavassoli M: Apoptin interacts with and regulates the activity of protein kinase C beta in cancer cells. Apoptosis 2015, 20:831-842.
  • Weitsman G, Lawler K, Kelleher MT, Barrett JE, Barber PR, Shamil E, Festy F, Patel G, Fruhwirth GO, Huang L, et al.: Imaging tumour heterogeneity of the consequences of a PKCalpha-substrate interaction in breast cancer patients. Biochem Soc Trans 2014, 42:1498-1505.
  • Linch M, Riou P, Claus J, Cameron AJ, de Naurois J, Larijani B, Ng T, McDonald NQ, Parker PJ: Functional implications of assigned, assumed and assembled PKC structures. Biochem Soc Trans 2014, 42:35-41.
  • Kiuchi T, Ortiz-Zapater E, Monypenny J, Matthews DR, Nguyen LK, Barbeau J, Coban O, Lawler K, Burford B, Rolfe DJ, et al.: The ErbB4 CYT2 variant protects EGFR from ligand-induced degradation to enhance cancer cell motility. Sci Signal 2014, 7:ra78.
  • Fruhwirth GO, Diocou S, Blower PJ, Ng T, Mullen GE: A whole-body dual-modality radionuclide optical strategy for preclinical imaging of metastasis and heterogeneous treatment response in different microenvironments. J Nucl Med 2014, 55:686-694.
  • Devauges V, Matthews DR, Aluko J, Nedbal J, Levitt JA, Poland SP, Coban O, Weitsman G, Monypenny J, Ng T, et al.: Steady-state acceptor fluorescence anisotropy imaging under evanescent excitation for visualisation of FRET at the plasma membrane. PLoS One 2014, 9:e110695.
  • Chowdhury R, Ganeshan B, Irshad S, Lawler K, Eisenblatter M, Milewicz H, Rodriguez-Justo M, Miles K, Ellis P, Groves A, et al.: The use of molecular imaging combined with genomic techniques to understand the heterogeneity in cancer metastasis. Br J Radiol 2014, 87:20140065.
  • Beck S, Ng T: C2c: turning cancer into chronic disease. Genome Med 2014, 6:38.
  • Vermeer LS, Fruhwirth GO, Pandya P, Ng T, Mason AJ: NMR metabolomics of MTLn3E breast cancer cells identifies a role for CXCR4 in lipid and choline regulation. J Proteome Res 2012, 11:2996-3003.
  • Shayeghi N, Ng T, Coolen AC: Direct Response Analysis in cellular signalling networks. J Theor Biol 2012, 304:219-225.
  • Matthews DR, Fruhwirth GO, Weitsman G, Carlin LM, Ofo E, Keppler M, Barber PR, Tullis ID, Vojnovic B, Ng T, et al.: A multi-functional imaging approach to high-content protein interaction screening. PLoS One 2012, 7:e33231.
  • Vega FM, Fruhwirth G, Ng T, Ridley AJ: RhoA and RhoC have distinct roles in migration and invasion by acting through different targets. J Cell Biol 2011, 193:655-665.
  • Patel GS, Kiuchi T, Lawler K, Ofo E, Fruhwirth GO, Kelleher M, Shamil E, Zhang R, Selvin PR, Santis G, et al.: The challenges of integrating molecular imaging into the optimization of cancer therapy. Integr Biol (Camb) 2011, 3:603-631.
  • Kudsiova L, Ho J, Fridrich B, Harvey R, Keppler M, Ng T, Hart SL, Tabor AB, Hailes HC, Lawrence MJ: Lipid chain geometry of C14 glycerol-based lipids: effect on lipoplex structure and transfection. Mol Biosyst 2011, 7:422-436.
  • Kudsiova L, Fridrich B, Ho J, Mustapa MF, Campbell F, Welser K, Keppler M, Ng T, Barlow DJ, Tabor AB, et al.: Lipopolyplex ternary delivery systems incorporating C14 glycerol-based lipids. Mol Pharm 2011, 8:1831-1847.
  • Fruhwirth GO, Fernandes LP, Weitsman G, Patel G, Kelleher M, Lawler K, Brock A, Poland SP, Matthews DR, Keri G, et al.: How Forster resonance energy transfer imaging improves the understanding of protein interaction networks in cancer biology. Chemphyschem 2011, 12:442-461.
  • Carlin LM, Evans R, Milewicz H, Fernandes L, Matthews DR, Perani M, Levitt J, Keppler MD, Monypenny J, Coolen T, et al.: A targeted siRNA screen identifies regulators of Cdc42 activity at the natural killer cell immunological synapse. Sci Signal 2011, 4:ra81.
  • Heasman SJ, Carlin LM, Cox S, Ng T, Ridley AJ: Coordinated RhoA signaling at the leading edge and uropod is required for T cell transendothelial migration. J Cell Biol 2010, 190:553-563.
  • Fruhwirth GO, Ameer-Beg S, Cook R, Watson T, Ng T, Festy F: Fluorescence lifetime endoscopy using TCSPC for the measurement of FRET in live cells. Opt Express 2010, 18:11148-11158.
  • Carlin LM, Makrogianneli K, Keppler M, Fruhwirth GO, Ng T: Visualisation of signalling in immune cells. Methods Mol Biol 2010, 616:97-113.
  • Cade NI, Fruhwirth G, Archibald SJ, Ng T, Richards D: A cellular screening assay using analysis of metal-modified fluorescence lifetime. Biophys J 2010, 98:2752-2757.

 

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