Background
Daniel Taylor is a self-funded PhD Researcher in the Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University, supervised by Dr. Yang Liu, Dr. Mhairi Morris, and Dr. Liam Heaney.
His research examines tumour-microenvironment interactions, with a particular focus on the diet-microbiome-cancer axis and dietary bioactive metabolites. He is an associate member of the Royal Society of Biology, the European Association for Cancer Research, and the British Association for Cancer Research.
Research
Daniel's doctoral research investigates the role of butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid produced by gut bacterial fermentation of dietary fibre, in shaping the breast tumour microenvironment. His work focuses on stiffness-dependent fibroblast-to-cancer-associated-fibroblast (CAF) activation, cancer cell invasion in 3D co-culture models, and the underlying mechanisms of HDAC inhibition and YAP–TAZ mechanotransduction signalling.
This experimental work builds on a systematic review of seaweed-derived polysaccharides and short-chain fatty acids in breast cancer models, which Daniel led as first author. Together, this research aims to clarify how diet-derived metabolites influence stromal cell behaviour and tumour progression, with translational relevance to dietary and microbiome-targeted approaches in breast cancer.