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Contact Details

Email
rachel.purcell@otago.ac.nz
Position
Senior Research Fellow
Department
Department of Surgery and Critical Care (Christchurch)
Qualifications
BSc(Hons)(Cork) MSc(Hons)(PIC) PhD(Otago)
Research summary
Bowel cancer

Research

Rachel is a Research Fellow with the Department of Surgery. She has a background in molecular biology and cancer genetics.

Her research is centred on the molecular mechanisms of pathogenic bacteria in colorectal carcinogenesis.

Rachel's current research projects include investigating the effect of the gut microbiome on radiotherapy response in rectal cancer, microbiome-based markers of diverticular disease and molecular classification of colorectal cancer.

Publications

Hegoburu, A., Amer, M., Frizelle, F., & Purcell, R. (2025). B cells and tertiary lymphoid structures in cancer therapy response. BJC Reports, 3, 40. doi: 10.1038/s44276-025-00146-1 Journal - Research Other

Teo, Y., Frizelle, F., McCombie, A., Pearson, J., Purcell, R., & Yam, S. T. (2025). The association between age and colorectal polyps distribution. ANZ Journal of Surgery, 95(Suppl. 1), CR0139P. doi: 10.1111/ans.70063 Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

Appleby, S., & Purcell, R. (2025). Circulating bacterial DNA in cardiovascular disease. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, 12, 1476165. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1476165 Journal - Research Other

Purcell, R. (2025). Bacterial lipopolysaccharide modulates methylation in colorectal cancer. Proceedings of the Genetics Otago (GO) Annual Symposium. Retrieved from https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/go Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

Sulit, A. K., Hegoburu, A., & Purcell, R. (2024, August-September). Response to chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancers: Profiling protein expression in defined tumour tissue structures. Verbal presentation at the Queenstown Research Week (QRW) Cancer Meeting, Queenstown, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

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