Dr Frank McCaughan

Dr Frank McCaughan

Assistant Professor

fm319@cam.ac.uk 

Twitter: @frankmccaughan

LinkedIn: Frank McCaughan

Biography

Dr McCaughan is a clinician scientist and Principal Investigator in the Heart and Lung Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. His clinical practice is at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where he is an Honorary Consultant in Respiratory Medicine.

Originally from Ballycastle, Country Antrim, he studied Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and caught the science bug there in David Harrison’s laboratory in the Department of Pathology. After junior doctor training in Manchester, London and Melbourne he was awarded an MRC clinical PhD fellowship to apply novel genomic techniques to rare archived early lung cancer biopsies in the laboratories of Pamela Rabbitts at University College London and Paul Dear at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.

Frank was then awarded a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Fellowship hosted at the Department of Biochemistry and mentored by Gerard Evan and Trevor Littlewood. He established a team using novel model systems to interrogate key early mechanisms in SQC. He was simultaneously a Visiting Clinical Senior Lecturer at King’s College London.

Since 2017 he has been a group leader in the Department of Medicine and. The group’s research focus has evolved to include early detection and airway pathobiology as well as an ongoing focus on SQC.

Research Approach:

The lab has three distinct but inter-related interests:

1. Pathobiology of squamous lung cancer (SQC). The available model tools to study this disease are poor and there are no licensed targeted agents. We use novel model systems to interrogate the impact of and interplay between key molecular drivers of SQC. The ultimate aim is to identify novel therapeutic vulnerabilities for the prevention and treatment of this devastating disease.
2. Early detection of lung cancer. Early detection of lung cancer saves lives. We use cutting edge multiparametric biomarkers assays to ask whether lung cancer can be robustly diagnosed using a blood test.
3. Building airways in the lab. We are members of a multidisciplinary consortium with the aim of revolutionising modelling the lung in vitro. The vision is to use multiple cell lineages from patients to create individualised microphysiological systems that reflect a patient’s lung disease.  

Current projects:

1. SOX2 and squamous lung pathogenesis. We use multiple approaches to interrogate the impact of SOX2 deregulation in the pathogenesis of lung SQC. Using a range of tools - model systems, cell and molecular biology, bioinformatics - co-operating genetic lesions and therapeutic vulnerabilities. The tools we us include model systems, cell and molecular biology as well as bioinformatics. Ultimately the aim is to harness pathobiological understanding to improve outcomes in squamous lung cancer through novel means of prevention or intervention.
2. iLUNG – this project builds on our established and customised protocols in expanding normal lung cells from patients to the ambitious goal of creating integrated individualised mini-lungs from well-phenotyped patients with lung disease. The iLUNG project, if successful would have a major impact on discovery and translational/pharmaceutical science.
3. MISIL1 – Multiparametric Investigation and Stratification of Indeterminate Lung Nodules.  In this project, funded by Cancer Research UK and the Cambridge Cancer Centre, we are testing multiple circulating biomarkers to understand whether they discriminate malignant from benign pulmonary nodules.

Selected Publication

1. Correia LL, Johnson JA, McErlean P, Bauer J, Farah H, Rassl DM, Rintoul RC, Sethi T, Lavender P, Rawlins EL, Littlewood TD, Evan GI, McCaughan FM. SOX2 Drives Bronchial Dysplasia in a Novel Organotypic Model of Early Human Squamous Lung Cancer. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2017 Jun 1;195(11):1494-1508. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201510-2084OC. PMID: 28199128; PMCID: PMC5470746.
2. Efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity of a booster regimen of Ad26.COV2.S vaccine against COVID-19 (ENSEMBLE2): results of a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial.Hardt K for the ENSEMBLE2 study group. Lancet Infect Dis. 2022 Dec;22(12):1703-1715. PMID: 36113538
3. Porter L, McCaughan F. SOX2 and squamous cancers. Semin Cancer Biol. 2020 Dec;67(Pt 1):154-167. doi: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2020.05.007. Epub 2020 Sep 6. PMID: 32905832.
4. Guo W, Porter LM, Crozier TW, Coates M, Jha A, McKie M, Nathan JA, Lehner PJ, Greenwood EJ, McCaughan F. Topical TMPRSS2 inhibition prevents SARS-CoV-2 infection in differentiated human airway cultures. Life Sci Alliance. 2022 Feb 2;5(4):e202101116. doi: 10.26508/lsa.202101116. PMID: 35110354; PMCID: PMC8814636.
5. McCaughan F, Pole JC, Bankier AT, Konfortov BA, Carroll B, Falzon M, Rabbitts TH, George PJ, Dear PH, Rabbitts PH. Progressive 3q amplification consistently targets SOX2 in preinvasive squamous lung cancer. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2010 Jul 1;182(1):83-91. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201001-0005OC. Epub 2010 Mar 18. PMID: 20299530; PMCID: PMC2902760.

Research collaborators

Cambridge Cancer Centre; https://crukcambridgecentre.org.uk/

Namshik Han; https://www.milner.cam.ac.uk/machinelearning/

Joo-Hyeon Lee; https://www.stemcells.cam.ac.uk/people/pi/lee

Professor YY Shery Huang; https://biointerface.eng.cam.ac.uk/

Dr Erica Bello, Milner Target Discovery Group;  https://www.milner.cam.ac.uk/target-discovery-group/

Professor Philip Crosbie; https://www.crukcentre.manchester.ac.uk/team-members/phil-crosbie/