research

The Grenfell Firefighters Study is a cohort study of firefighters from the London Fire Brigade to look at the medium and long term risks associated with firefighting, with a particular emphasis on cardiorespiratory health and cancer. The cohort includes both firefighters who did, and did not attend the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. Recruitment began in late 2019 and finished in 2023.

Analysis of a subgroup of blood results looking at cancer biomarkers has now been published on Scientific Reports (Feary et al, 2025). Our findings revealed that 11 firefighters carried pathogenic DNA variants associated with cancer, but we found no association between fire smoke exposure and the presence of these variants.

Read the full article. 

Read more about our current research. 

Analysis of lung function results is expected to be complete by 31/12/2025.

Dr Jen Canizales from our laboratory has been collaborating with Dr Elaine Fuertes from Imperial College London on a project to improve the tracking of airborne pollen allergens. The goal is to provide hay fever sufferers with better tools to manage their symptoms. The project was recently featured on CBS News — you can read the article and watch the news clip using the links below:

Read the full article: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/allergies-pollen-count-uk-research-finds-allergen-levels-idicate-symptoms/

Watch news segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKSUYicC6sw

In March, supported by a Horizon Europe grant led by Dr Elaine Fuertes, Dr Jen Canizales spent two weeks in France training in spectrometry techniques to improve airborne allergen analysis. She was supervised and guided by Dr Gabriela Graziani (Politecnico di Milano, Università di Bologna) and Prof Laura Riva (Politecnico di Milano). Whilst there, Jen gave a presentation on the work carried out by the OEM Laboratory Service to staff at students at Politecnico di Milano.