DrClaire Fletcher

Dr Claire Fletcher is a Group Leader and Advanced Research Fellow within the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial, where she completed her PhD, Post-Doctoral studies, a Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award and an Imperial College/ AstraZeneca co-funded Research Fellowship.

Claire has two principal research passions:
1) the role of adipose tissue in promoting aggressive prostate cancer phenotypes
2) small RNA/ post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in hormone-dependent cancers.

Specifically, her team aims to delineate mechanisms of obesity-driven prostate cancer aggressiveness at the molecular level, examining bi-directional, communication between adipocytes and prostate cancer cells to develop novel therapeutics, with a particular focus on extracellular vesicles (EVs). In addition, she is interested in non-canonical mechanisms through which microRNAs (miRs) alter gene activity, and how aberrations in miR networks contribute to disease progression. She is intrigued by the regulatory mechanisms that govern miR biogenesis, and by the huge potential of miR mimics and inhibitors as novel therapeutics. Other research interests include the role of transcript length alterations in driving prostate cancer progression, long non-coding RNA:miR interactions in DNA damage and chemotherapy response, and the utility of miRs as diagnostic or predictive prostate cancer biomarkers.

Ongoing projects include:
- Peri-Prostatic Adipose Tissue Fuels Obesity-Driven Prostate Cancer via Extracellular Vesicles
- Pre-clinical Development of Novel DNA-damaging MicroRNA Therapeutics for Advanced Prostate Cancer
- Investigating Long Non-Coding RNA NORAD Function in Cancer DNA Damage Response
- CRISPR screening to Identify Drug-Resistance-Specific Therapeutic Vulnerabilities
- Mechanisms of Post-Transcriptional Regulation of Wild-Type and Variant AR in Prostate Cancer
- MiR-16-5p and MiR-424-5p as ‘Master Regulators’ of Cell Cycle Progression in Human Cancers
- MicroRNA Drivers of Resistance to Novel Therapeutics in Advanced PC
- MicroRNAs as biomarkers of prostate cancer risk.

Selected recent publications:
• Fletcher CE*, Taylor M, and Bevan CL (2023). PLK1 regulates MicroRNA Biogenesis Through Drosha Phosphorylation. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 24 (18): 14290. PMID: 37762595, DOI: 10.3390/ijms241814290. * = corresponding author
• Zamarbide Losada JN, Sulpice E, Combe S, Almeida GS, Leach DA, Choo J, Protopapa L, Hamilton MP, McGuire S, Gidrol X, Bevan CL and Fletcher CE (2023). MiR-361-3p Modulates Apoptosis in Endocrine-Resistant and -Responsive Breast Cancer. Journal of Endocrinology 256 (3): e220229. PMID: 36622663, DOI: 10.1530/JOE-22-0229
• Fletcher CE‡*, Deng L*, Orafidiya F*, Yuan W, Lorentzen MPGS, Cyran OW, Varela-Carver A, Constantin TA, Leach DA, Dobbs FM, Figueiredo I, Gurel B, Parkes E, Bogdan D, Pereira RR, Zhao SG, Neeb A, Issa F, Hester J, Kudo H, Liu Y, Philippou Y, Bristow R, Knudsen K, Bryant RJ, Feng FY, Reed SH, Mills IG, de Bono J, Bevan CL (2022). A Non-Coding RNA Balancing Act: MiR-346-Induced DNA Damage is Limited by the Long Non-Coding RNA NORAD in Prostate Cancer. Molecular Cancer 21:82. PMID: 35317841, DOI: 10.1186/s12943-022-01540-w. ‡ corresponding author, * equal contributions
• Orafidiya F, Deng L, Bevan CL, Fletcher CE (2022). Crosstalk between Long Non-Coding RNAs, microRNAs and DNA Damage Repair in Prostate Cancer: New Therapeutic Opportunities? Cancers (Basel) 14(3):755.
• Eringyte I, Zamarbide Losada JN, Powell SM, Bevan CL and Fletcher CE (2019). Invited review - Coordinated AR and MicroRNA Regulation in Prostate Cancer. Asian Journal of Urology 7(3): 233-250.
• Fletcher CE, Sulpice E, Coombe S, Guyon L, Hamilton M, Chrysostomou S, Leach D, Sharp A, Welti J, Yuan W, Dart DA, International SU2C/PCF Prostate Cancer Dream Team, Swain A, Lupold S, De Bono JS, McGuire SE, Gidrol X and Bevan C (2019). A Novel High-Throughput Screening Approach Identifies Androgen Receptor-Modulatory MicroRNAs and New Therapeutic Targets in Prostate Cancer. Oncogene. 38(28):5700-5724. doi: 10.1038/s41388-019-0823-5. * Selected as ‘Readers’ Choice’: best of Oncogene 2019’s most cited/shared papers *
• Fletcher CE, Godfrey JD, Shibakawa A, Bushell M and Bevan CL (2017). A Novel Role for GSK3β as a Modulator of Drosha Microprocessor Activity and MicroRNA Biogenesis. Nucleic Acids Res. Mar 17; 45(5): 2809–2828.