Continual improvements in survival rates following cancer diagnosis mean that post-treatment quality of life and productivity have become increasingly important issues. One key problem for many cancer survivors is the long lasting effect of chemotherapy on cognitive function. The effects of chemotherapy on cognitive function are known as chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment (CICI), known colloquially as ‘chemo-brain’. Cancer patients can also develop anxiety disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), following diagnosis and treatment, which are also associated with cognitive impairment and may also contribute to the development of chemo-brain.

We are interested in understanding how chemotherapy can affect cognitive function. We use various learning paradigms to study this issue. We also are interested in how chemotherapy induces long term changes in genome biology and the transcriptome. We use high throughput sequencing technologies to study this issue.