REPORT - Hannah Sheedy - BACR/AstraZenica Student Travel Award

09 May 2025

Conference: International Society for Minimal Residual Cancer (ISMRC) 14th International Symposium, Nice, France.

Attendee: Hannah Sheedy, Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre, Manchester.

I was privileged to attend the ISMRC conference in Nice with support from the BACR-AstraZeneca Travel Award. The conference, themed "Liquid Biopsy: From Discovery to Clinical Implementation," brought together leading researchers in liquid biopsy and minimal residual disease, providing an invaluable platform to learn about cutting-edge advances in the field and present my work on singlecell methylation profiling in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

I presented an e-poster entitled "Development of a Single-Cell Methylation Workflow to Understand the Biology of Circulating Cells in Early-Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer." The work describes a novel enzyme-based conversion approach for single-cell methylation sequencing that overcomes the limitations of traditional bisulfite-based methods, which suffer from DNA degradation and poor CpG coverage of less than 4%.

I was honoured to receive the Young Investigator Gold Award for my presentation, winning first place in the early-career researcher category. This recognition was particularly meaningful given the high calibre of research presented at the conference and validates the innovative nature of our methodological development.

The conference sessions provided crucial insights into the latest developments in liquid biopsy technologies and their clinical applications. Particularly relevant to my work were presentations on novel approaches to circulating tumour cell characterisation and their role in metastatic progression, emerging single-cell multi-omics techniques for understanding tumour heterogeneity, clinical 
validation studies demonstrating the prognostic value of liquid biopsies in early-stage cancers, and technological advances in low-input DNA sequencing methodologies.
These sessions reinforced the clinical relevance of our single-cell methylation approach and highlighted complementary techniques that could enhance future studies of circulating epithelial cells in NSCLC patients from the TRACERx study. The emphasis throughout the conference on translating liquid biopsy discoveries into clinical implementation resonated strongly with our goal of developing predictive biomarkers for post-surgical surveillance.

Beyond the scientific programme, the conference facilitated valuable networking with international experts in liquid biopsy research. I engaged in productive discussions with researchers working on single-cell technologies, methylation profiling, and lung cancer biomarkers during poster sessions and coffee breaks. These interactions established connections that may lead to future collaborations and provided practical insights into troubleshooting single-cell protocols. The feedback I received on my poster helped refine our experimental approach and identified potential applications of our method in other cancer types, including colorectal and breast cancers where methylation signatures may play important prognostic roles.

The BACR-AstraZeneca Travel Award enabled me to present our work on an international stage, gaining recognition and constructive feedback that will strengthen our ongoing research. The knowledge gained from the conference has directly informed our validation studies, particularly regarding quality control metrics for single-cell sequencing and strategies for scaling up to clinical sample analysis. The award has significantly contributed to my development as an early-career researcher and enhanced the visibility of our work within the international liquid biopsy community.Our enzyme-based single-cell methylation workflow has demonstrated feasibility in NSCLC cell lines and healthy donor white blood cells, achieving robust library preparation and reproducible copy number profiling down to the single-cell level. Following the positive reception at ISMRC, we are now progressing to validate this protocol across diverse cell types and apply it to clinical samples from TRACERx study participants. This method has the potential to uncover novel epigenetic mechanisms of metastasis and inform predictive biomarkers that could improve risk stratification and postsurgical surveillance strategies for early-stage NSCLC patients.

I am deeply grateful to the BACR and AstraZeneca for this opportunity, which has been instrumental in advancing both my research and professional development in the cancer research community.

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