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On 05 March 2026, the EACR hosted a webinar in collaboration with Illumina, one of our valued EACR Industry Partners. In this webinar we welcomed Richard Capper to give an exclusive digest of Illumina technology updates before a presentation from Dr. Alexandra Clipson, whose work at the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre addresses the complexities of investigating Cancers of Unknown Primary (CUP).
Thanks to Dr. Clipson and Illumina we are able to provide free on-demand access to the webinar, which can be found above.
Talk abstracts
An introduction by Richard Capper
This webinar began with an exclusive digest of Illumina technology updates from AGBT 2026. By reviewing these innovations through the lens of oncology, we explore how the EACR community can leverage new multiomic innovations and sequencing capabilities to gain the multi-dimensional clarity required to navigate the most intricate questions in cancer biology.
“To unmask the complex underlying mechanisms of cancer, research is increasingly shifting toward multiomic and multimodal approaches that capture a more complete biological landscape.” – Dr. Alexandra Clipson
The webinar also featured Dr. Alexandra Clipson, whose work at the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre addresses the complexities of investigating Cancers of Unknown Primary (CUP). Dr. Clipson discussed how her team harnesses a multi-omic liquid biopsy approach—integrating genomic, epigenomic, and fragmentomic features from circulating cell‑free DNA (cfDNA)—alongside machine‑learning classifiers such as CUPiD to enable tissue‑of‑origin classification. She also shared her research experience evaluating Illumina’s 5‑base solution within an integrated multi‑omics cfDNA workflow, including comparative analyses with other approaches and its impact on generating high‑quality data across multiple cfDNA features.
Speakers
Dr. Alexandra Clipson, Deputy Team Leader, Nucleic Acid Biomarkers Team, Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom
Dr. Alexandra Clipson is the Deputy Team Leader of the Nucleic Acids Biomarker (NAB) team at the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre. Her research expertise is centered on the development and delivery of NGS-based liquid biopsy assays, with a specialized focus on maximizing feature extraction from cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs). She is a leading specialist in cfDNA methylation profiling, utilizing tissue- and tumor-specific patterns to reveal the origins of cfDNA and understand more about the biology of tumours. Beyond her current focus on liquid biopsies, Dr. Clipson has a background in the molecular characterization and whole exome sequencing of B-cell lymphomas from her postdoctoral position at the University of Cambridge, and she holds a PhD in Chemistry focused on target-guided synthesis for the discovery of novel enzyme inhibitors.
Richard Capper, Senior Director, Global Research Segment Marketing, Illumina
Richard Capper is the Senior Director of Global Research Customer Segment Marketing for Illumina. In his 10+ years with Illumina, he has held a number of roles in Service and Support particularly focusing on clinical applications in reproductive health, oncology and whole genome sequencing before moving to his current role in marketing in 2020.
Richard received his BSc from Bristol University and his DPhil from the University of Oxford. During his DPhil and subsequent Post-Doctoral research at the University of Oxford, Richard applied (at the time) new techniques such as microarrays to a range of model organisms. His love of technology continued in his roles working as a High-Throughput Service Manager for Oxford Gene Technology Work and then as a Field Applications Specialist at Agilent Technologies.
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