Posts Tagged ‘oncology’

charles craddock

June 10th, 2010

Some kinds of leukemia and myeloma have been traditionally very difficult to treat, and put patients through punishing chemotherapy which only sometimes worked. This situation has recently changed dramatically.

Charles Craddock Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Unit at University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust says there are now exciting novel transplant and drug therapies, transforming patients’ lives, enabling many to live longer and fuller lives than was ever thought possible only a few years ago.

Charles Craddock is Professor of Haematolo-oncology at the University of Birmingham as well as Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Unit at University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. He has a particular research interest in the development of novel transplant and drug therapies in leukemia and myeloma. He also works with groups researching chromatin structure in acute-myeloid leukemia, mechanisms of drug resistance in myeloma and characterisaation of dysregulated signalling pathways in leukemia using proteomics.

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philip johnson

June 10th, 2010

“The UK is the best place in the world to run trials, with consequent ‘wealth and health’ benefits,” so says Philip Johnson, Director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trails Unit as well as Professor of Oncology and Translational Research at the University of Birmingham. In The New Optimists he argues why clinical trials are so important, and the kind of impact they have on treatments and patient care across the world.

Professor Johnson developed his interest in clinical trials and hepatobiliary cancer whilst at the Institute of Liver Studies, Kings College Hospital, London where he subsequently became Assistant Director. In 1992, he was appointed to the Chair of Clinical Oncology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he also became Director of the Cancer Centre and developed the Comprehensive Clinical Trials Unit whilst furthering his research interests into molecular biomarkers of cancer and new approaches to the treatment of live cancer.

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andrew peet

June 10th, 2010

The clinical treatment of brain tumours in children is undergoing a revolution because of new scanning techniques; i.e. ever more illuminating non-invasive brain imaging of several kinds. The medics caring for these children now have a far better understanding of what the tumour is and where it is — and so can provide far more effective treatments.

Dr Andrew Peet is at the forefront of research in this area, and is a clinician too, being both a Clinical Research Fellow and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at the University of Birmingham and the Oncology Department at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

His research is on new scanning techniques and, in his contribution to The New Optimists, he explains how CT scans provided the first breakthrough, and now how magnetic resonance spectroscopy and other complementary functional imaging techniques are revolutionising both our understanding and the treatment of brain tumours.

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nicholas james

June 10th, 2010

Nick James is at the forefront of the battle against cancer. In his paper about targeted therapies (in Part 1: Microcosm: Tackling the big challenges in The New Optimists) he explains the latest cancer treatments, particularly the success, but also the cost of targeted molecular approaches to cancer treatment.

As Professor of Clinical Oncology at the University of Birmingham and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Nick James’ current research focusses on urological tumours, and he leads a number of international trials. In 1994, he co-founded the leading patient website, CancerHelpUK which has won numerous awards.

He qualified from St Bartholomew’s Hospital with the principal class prize in medicine. After general training in London and Brussels, he undertook oncology training at Hammersmith, the Royal Marsden, St Marys and St Bartholomew’s Hospitals and at the Cancer Institute, Tokyo.

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derek alderson

June 10th, 2010

Professor Derek Alderson holds the Baring Chair of Surgery at the University of Birmingham. Current Editor of the British Journal of Surgery, his main area of clinical interest is in oesophago-gastric surgery.

His contribution to The New Optimists is Part 1: The Microcosm: Tackling the big challenges, Editor Keith Richards mentions it in his Introduction as it is an illustration of how the practical doing of science raises not just answers, but much more interestingly,  raises questions waiting to be answered:

” . . . over the last forty years the incidence of oesophageal adenocarcinoma has risen from just one tenth to three-quarters of all oesophageal cancers in the UK and that the UK has the highest incidence of this form of cancer in the world, but as yet we don’t know why. The writers in this collection convey the excitement, and sometimes the urgency of confronting questions such as these. Theirs is an optimism grounded in engagements of this kind — and it is all the more inspiring for that.”

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paul moss

June 5th, 2010

That cancer can be controlled within a generation is an optimistic viewpoint. Coming from Professor Paul Moss, a clinical haematologist as well as Head of the School of Cancer Studies at the University of Birmingham, it is a cogent argument arising from a deep understanding of the complexities of the one of the biggest challenges in medical research, and not some wildly hopeful assertion.

It is the argument he puts forward in the first essay in The New Optimists.

Professor Moss’ particular research interest is in the role of the immune system in the protection from cancer and viral infection. He is also one of the panelists for the British Science Festival event on 15th September 2010, chaired by Sue Beardsmore — so you have the opportunity to talk with him face-to-face. Please do come, or participate on-line — more information about how to do so will be posted shortly.

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