• Ageing, Cancer, and Disparities Research Unit – ACADI

Welcome back to the first instalment of ACADI’s Newsletter for 2025! The team wishes you a happy and healthy rest of the year. We also have some updates to report.

Publications

Work led by our previous Master’s intern Fei Liu, supervised by Dr India Pinker, has been published in the Journal of Geriatric Oncology. You can read the work entitled “Exploring the status of online social support for older adults with cancer: A scoping review” here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879406824004557?via%3Dihub

Grant Submissions

Dr Sophie Pilleron has submitted a RESCOM grant in response to the call by the National Research Fund (FNR), to host a lecture series on causal inference methods. The series would host international experts and stimulate discussion surrounding best practices and developments in the area.

The team has also been active to prepare submissions for the CORE call by FNR. The team will be submitting two proposals for this call, including one CORE Junior.

Unfortunately, the recent grant application to the World Cancer Research Fund, for the PACO project in collaboration with the PASH team, was unsuccessful. The idea, however, will be recycled for a future funding call.

Ethical Committee Decisions

Dr Lisa Zangarini, a visiting scientist in our team, has received ethical approval to run her study investigating healthcare professional and patient perspectives on the use of smartwatches to monitor health in general practice settings.

The REDCIO-Qual study, upon advice from the committee, will be split into two separate study protocols for resubmission and favourable opinion.

Meet the Team

We are delighted to introduce you to our newest team member, Dr Pauline Duquenne!

Hello, I’m Pauline Duquenne, and I am from France. After studying statistics, I chose to focus on epidemiology in order to apply these skills to the field of public health. My PhD research focused on mental health disorders as risk factors for obesity and type 2 diabetes, with a particular focus on mental comorbidities, which are highly prevalent.

I’m delighted to be joining ACADI as a Postdoctoral Fellow on the “Reducing Disparities in Cancer Outcomes” (REDICO) project! Cancer is a new research area for me, and I am lucky to be able to explore it, especially in older adults, a population that is under-represented in scientific studies. My work will focus on predicting the risk of early mortality and treatment toxicity in older adults with cancer, with the aim of helping carers and patients to make the best decisions in cancer management.

~ Dr Pauline Duquenne

Until next time, keep well.

The ACADI Team