Professor Adrian Harris

Biography

Adrian L Harris is the Cancer Research UK Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Oxford and directs the Cancer Research UK Molecular Oncology Laboratories at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM). He is a Consultant Medical Oncologist and a Professorial Fellow of St Hugh’s College Oxford. He is Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Cancer and on the Editorial Board of Cancer Cell. He is a Senior Investigator in the National Institute of Health Research and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

He is a ‘Highly Cited Researcher 2014’ ranking among the top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication—between 2002 and 2012 and included in Thompson Reuters ‘2014 World’s most Influential Scientific Minds.’ He is also listed in Boyack KW, et al. A list of highly influential biomedical researchers, 1996-2011. Eur J Clin Invest. 2013 43:1339-65. These are Top 400 world-wide cited investigators in all biomedical fields. He has published over 500 papers and there are over 145,000 citations to them, h-index 184.

He has received a Platinum Merit Award from then National Health Service for the last 15 years, given to the 200 most outstanding consultants for all specialities.

He trained in Medicine and Biochemistry at Liverpool University, did a DPhil at Oxford University then trained at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Medical Oncology. He was appointed Professor of Clinical Oncology at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1982. Since 1988 he has been the Professor of Medical Oncology at Oxford University. He directs the Molecular Oncology Laboratories at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. He has managed breast cancer patients for over 30 years.

His major laboratory interests involve the role of hypoxia in breast tumour biology, and tumour angiogenesis, the metabolic response to hypoxia, microRNAs induced by hypoxia and hypoxia-induced cell death. He has conducted many predictive and prognostic studies and early exploratory phase trials in new drug development, molecular pathology and biomarkers, to translate laboratory findings to clinical relevance and development of new agents.

In the Department of Oncology over 20 Phase I and II trials are run and current trials include new drugs blocking angiogenesis, metabolism inhibitors, DNA repair, immunotherapy, inhibitors of signal transduction and their interactions with radiotherapy. Specific emphasis is on classification of tumours by functional imaging, molecular profiles, and pharmacodynamic endpoints to targeted therapies.

Johanna Joyce

Bibliography

Prof. Johanna Joyce’s laboratory investigates the microenvironment in which a tumour arises and the critical influence that non-cancerous immune and stromal cells can have on tumour progression and metastasis. They have uncovered regulatory signals provided by the normal tissue stroma and immune cells to the cancer cells, and determined how normal cells can be modified by the cancer cells to produce a variety of factors that enhance tumour malignancy. Her group is also actively exploring the mechanisms underlying the contribution of the tumour microenvironment to therapeutic resistance. Their ultimate goal is to apply this collective knowledge to the clinic and develop targeted therapies that disrupt critical tumour-stromal interactions.

Johanna began her independent career at MSKCC in New York in 2004, rising through the academic ranks to Full Member and Full Professor at Cornell Medical School in 2014. Johanna moved to Switzerland in 2016, where she is a Full Professor at the University of Lausanne and Full Member of the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research. In 2017, Johanna was elected as a Member of EMBO and a Fellow of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences. Johanna has been recognized for her contributions to cancer research through a series of awards including the Cloetta Prize, Swiss Bridge Award, American Cancer Society Scholar Award, Rita Allen Foundation Award, Sidney Kimmel Foundation Award, and the inaugural Pandolfi Women in Cancer Research Award from Harvard Medical School, among many others.

www.joycelab.org

Janessa Laskin

Bibliography

Dr Laskin is a clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and an active member of the medical oncology staff at BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada. Her clinical and research interests have primarily focused on lung and head and neck cancers. She is an active member of many national and international lung cancer trials and advisory groups. In the last 7 years her research has evolved towards cancer genomics and personalized medicine and she is the clinical program leader for the Personalized Oncogenomics (POG) Program which is a collaborative research project between medical oncologists and the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver. The POG program is truly translational research effort that uses in-depth genomic and transcriptomic sequencing to guide chemotherapy decision-making in a clinically relevant time-frame.

Rene Medema

Bibliography

Prof. Dr. Rene H. Medema has worked in the cell cycle field since his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. R.A. Weinberg (Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, MA). His work as an independent group leader at the University Medical Center Utrecht and the Netherlands Cancer Institute has always focused on the control of cell division. The specific research lines in his group focus on cell cycle control by cell cycle checkpoints in order to gain a better understanding how cell division is influenced by damage to the DNA. In parallel, his group has studied how chromosome segregation is controlled, how chromosome segregation errors are prevented, and how these errors affect the fitness of tumor cells.

His group has made several key contributions to the general understanding of control of the cell cycle by Forkhead transcription factors (Medema et al, 2000, Nature 404:p.782; Laoukili et al., 2005, Nat. Cell Biol. 7:p126; Alvarez-Fernandez et al., 2010, EMBO Rep. 11:p.452) and by DNA damage (Smits et al, 2000, Nat. Cell Biol. 2:p.672; van Vugt et al., 2004, Mol. Cell 15:p.799; Macurek et al., 2008, Nature 455:p.119; Shaltiel et al., 2014, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111:p7313; Krenning et al., 2014, Mol.Cell. 55:p59; Feringa et al., 2016, Nat.Commun. 7:12618). In addition, work from his group has provided more insight on the role of motor proteins in spindle assembly (Tanenbaum et al., 2006, EMBO J. 25:p.45; Tanenbaum et al., 2009, Curr.Biol. 19:p.1703; Tanenbaum et al., 2011, Curr.Biol. 21:p.1356; Raaijmakers et al., 2013, 201:p201; van Heesbeen et al., 2014, Cell Rep. 8:p948) and the consequences of chromosome missegregation on the genomic stability and viability of a tumor cell (Janssen et al., 2011, PNAS 106:p.19108; Janssen et al., 2011, Science 333:p.1895; Soto et al., 2017, Cell Rep. 19:p2324). Rene Medema is currently scientific director of the Netherlands Cancer Institute and professor of Experimental Oncology at the University Medical Center Utrecht. He was elected EMBO member in 2007, and elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015.

Daniel Renouf, MD, MPH, FRCPC

Bibliography

Daniel Renouf is a medical oncologist at BC Cancer, Vancouver Centre, and an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, Department of Medicine.

He received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Alberta and completed his internal medicine and medical oncology training at the University of British Columbia and BC Cancer. He undertook further training in early drug development and gastrointestinal oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital and the University of Toronto, and obtained a Masters of Public Health from Harvard University.

Daniel’s research interests include developmental therapeutics, genomics, and biomarker development within gastrointestinal cancers, with a focus on pancreatic cancer. He is the leader of the BC Cancer Phase I program, the BC Cancer GI Tumour Group chair, the Co-Director of Pancreas Centre BC and is the Co-chair of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group Pancreatic Cancer disease group.

Ingo Ringshausen

Bibliography

Ingo Ringshausen studied medicine at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz/ Germany and London/ Canada. After his graduation in 1999 he started his medical training in Internal Medicine and Haematology/ Oncology at the Technical University in Munich. Between 2003 and 2006 he joined the group of Gerard Evan at UCSF on a postdoctoral fellowship. After his board certification in 2010 he became a Consultant in the Department of Haematology/ Oncology in Munich and subsequently an independent group leader. In 2014 he joined the Department of Haematology in Cambridge and is now appointed as Consultant Haematologist at Addenbrooke’s hospital and a Principal Investigator at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute.

Brid Ryan

Bibliography

Dr Ryan is a Principal Investigator at the National Cancer Institute. She came to the US in 2007 under a US-Ireland jointly funded program as a Cancer Prevention Fellow. She received all of her formal training in Ireland: from University College Cork (BSc Biochemistry), and University College Dublin (PhD Biochemistry, followed by Masters of Public Health). Dr Ryan is head of the Integrative Molecular Epidemiology Unit (IMEU) of the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, CCR, NCI, and uses an integrative and translational approach to studying population differences in lung cancer, combining epidemiological and laboratory methods to her research. In particular, her research program aims to develop diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for lung cancer, and uses a precision medicine approach to understand cancer health disparities. She is the author of over 50 research papers and book chapters and has received numerous awards for her work, including the European Association for Cancer Research Young Scientist Award and the AACR Future Leader in Cancer Prevention Award.

Professor Richard Sullivan

Bibliography

Richard Sullivan is Professor, Cancer Policy & Global Health at Kings College London and Director of the new Kings Institute of Cancer Policy. As a member of the Integrated Cancer Centre executive he leads the international strategy and is also Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Catolica, Chile, and Washington University. Richard also serves on Kings Centre for Global Health and the Marjan Centre for Conflict & Conservation. Richard qualified in medicine at St. Marys Hospital, London. Following training in surgery (onco-urology) he undertook a PhD and post-doctoral research in cell signalling at University College London. He then worked in a senior role in the pharmaceutical industry before spending nearly a decade with one of the worlds biggest NGO funders of cancer R&D Cancer Research UK as their clinical director. There he led on a number of major strategies including developing and launching the UK’s Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres and the development of the European Comprehensive Cancer Centres program. In 2008 Richard moved back into research at the London School of Economics were he studied complex healthcare systems within the health, society and population programme having previously worked in conflict and post conflict public health settings in the Balkans, Africa and most recently Middle East. He serves on a wide variety of advisory boards, including Charite Comprehensive Cancer Centre Berlin, Irish Clinical Oncology Group, Pfizer Policy Advisory Board, et al. He is past UK Director of the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs (CENSA) a Washington-based national security think-tank where he specialised in counter-proliferation and the security implications of global health.

Richard’s research programmes extend from the public policy of global cancer, to the development of public health systems in high-risk, conflict areas focusing on DR Congo, Afghanistan & Libya. In cancer public policy he has led on a number of major Lancet Oncology Commissions examining the affordability of cancer in high-income countries, global childhood cancer care and f cancer systems in Latin America. He is also chief investigator for a number of conflict and health programs including, analysis of the basic package of health services in Afghanistan, the post conflict reconstruction of Libya’s NCD system and the impact of the Syrian conflict on future population health, amongst others.

Conchita Vens

Bibliography

Conchita Vens is a clinical radiobiologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on molecular mechanisms involved in the cellular radiation response and on DNA repair defects in cancer. Next to revealing repair defects in tumours and characterizing the associated molecular processes, her projects aim to develop radiation combination strategies that exploit such tumour repair defects. She further supports the clinical application opportunities of DNA repair inhibitors with biomarker and radiation induced normal tissue toxicity studies. Her team developed DNA repair associated biomarkers to reveal the impact of repair defects on patient outcome and is interested in prognostic and predictive biomarkers to tailor head and neck cancer patient treatment. Her engagement in international and national radiation oncology societies reflects her strong commitment to support radiation oncology.