Scientific Advisory Board

Prof Mark Lawler is Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor of Digital Health and Chair in Translational Cancer Genomics at Queen’s University Belfast. He is Co-lead of the All Island Cancer Research Institute. Mark is Scientific Director of DATA-CAN, the UK’s Health Data Research Hub for Cancer. He is Chair of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership which sets a benchmark for cancer outcomes globally. He is Chair of the recently published Lancet Oncology European Groundshot Commission on Cancer Research, which reimagines cancer research and its implementation in Europe. He has a strong commitment to patient-centred research and to addressing cancer inequalities. He was architect of the European Cancer Patient's Bill of Rights, launched in the European Parliament (World Cancer Day). He received the 2018 European Health Award, a prestigious award for partnerships that yield real health impact in Europe. His pioneering work on Covid-19 and cancer received the Royal College of Physicians Excellence in Patient Care Award and the prestigious European Communique Award, which recognised the use of data to enhance cancer services and effect policy change. He leads the European Code of Cancer Practice initiative which highlights what cancer patients should expect from their health system. He is also scientific lead for the European Cancer Pulse which addresses cancer inequalities and their mitigation in Europe through a data-driven approach. In 2021, Mark received the Irish Association for Cancer Research’s Outstanding Contribution to cancer research award, for his pioneering work on cancer research and care on the island of Ireland. He and his team won the prestigious Health Data Research Impact of the Year Award in 2022 for their work on providing the crucial intelligence to inform a change in policy for treating colorectal cancer.

Manuela Baccarini, Professor of Cell Signalling at the Max Perutz Labs of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, serves as Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs since 1 October 2022. Baccarini is interested in how cells communicate and react to the environment, a process termed signal transduction. In particular, she studies the essential biological functions of signaling pathways implicated in developmental diseases and cancer. Professor Baccarini has published more than 100 scientific papers and is recognized as an expert in her field. She has a keen interest in educating the next generation of scientists, and until September 2022 was the Director of the  Vienna BioCenter PhD program – a graduate School of the University and Medical University of Vienna, which comprises more than 80 groups from the University of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and academic institutes on Campus. Professor Baccarini has been elected corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2010 and member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2012.

Prof. Nils Blüthgen is a computational biologist at the Charité University Hospital and Humboldt University in Berlin. As a trained physicist and biophysicist, he has worked in computational modelling and bioinformatics for more than 15 years. His group in Berlin investigates signaling and gene regulatory networks in cancer and develops both computational and single cell methods to understand response of these networks to treatment in complex patient-derived model systems. He is also speaker of a doctoral training program in computational cancer research, sitting on the steering committee of the multi-omics platform at the Berlin Institute of Health.

Dr. Forde treats patients with lung cancer, mesothelioma and other thoracic cancers. He completed training in internal medicine and oncology in Ireland prior to undertaking a further fellowship at Johns Hopkins. He is currently Co-Director of the Division of Upper Aerodigestive Malignancies in the Department of Oncology at Johns Hopkins and Director of the Thoracic Oncology Research Program. He has led development of a clinical-translational research program focused on the immuno-oncology of upper aerodigestive malignancies. Dr. Forde's research examines the role of immunotherapy for earlier stage lung cancer and his work has led to the development of several ongoing phase 3 trials. He leads international phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of novel immunotherapy approaches for lung cancer and mesothelioma that are currently active in Europe, Asia and North America while also serving as principal investigator for the thoracic cancer immunobiology biospecimen repository at Johns Hopkins. He is focused on providing compassionate, state of the art care for his patients in conjunction with a team of oncology specialist nurses, nurse practitioners and dedicated staff.

Professor Frank Gannon was the Director and CEO of QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute 2011-2020 having been Director General and board member of Science Foundation Ireland (The Irish Research Funding Agency) since 2007. His major research interest is the regulation (including epigenetic) of gene expression by the estrogen receptor. His work has resulted in over 300 publications that have been cited over 20,000 times. In addition, he has been a founder of three start-up companies. He has been a board member or Chair of seven Companies worldwide. He is a Fellow, Council member and Chair of the Reports committee of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, Academia Europea ,The European Academy of Cancer Sciences and the Mexican Academy of Medicine. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the University of Szeged (Hungary), The University of Queensland (Australia), Queens University Belfast (Northern Ireland) and the National University of Ireland. Currently  he is an Emeritus Fellow at QIMR Berghofer and has Honorary /Adjunct Professor appointments at the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology. He is a Special Advisor to the Brisbane Diamantina Health Partners, Consultant to the Springfield City Knowledge Precinct and ad hoc advisor to different universities and institutes.

Prof. Juliet Gray is a Professor in Paediatric Oncology within Medicine at the  University of Southampton. Prof. Gray graduated from Cambridge University and the Royal  Free Hospital School of Medicine. She completed her clinical training in Paediatric  Oncology at Southampton, Great Ormond Street and the Royal Marsden hospitals. During her training she was awarded a Cancer Research UK Clinical Research Fellowship, which  allowed her to complete a PhD in cancer immunotherapy within the Cancer Sciences Unit,  University of Southampton. In 2006, she was appointed at a NIHR Clinical Lecturer in  Paediatric Oncology, and as a Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Oncology in 2010. She is an honorary Consultant in Paediatric Oncology at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (UHSFT), where she leads the  clinical Paediatric Oncology and Haematology department.

Markus Morrison (Rehm) is the Director of the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology (IZI) and also is the Director of the Stuttgart Research Center Systems Biology (SRCSB) at the University of Stuttgart, one of the leading technical universities in Germany. The IZI and the SRCSB manage comprehensive research core facilities and research infrastructures for cellular analytics, systems and synthetic biology and coordinate large scale national and international research consortia with academic, clinical and private sector partners.

His research team in Cell Biology and Experimental Systems Biology covers expertise in Biochemistry, Biophysics, Molecular Imaging, and Computational Modelling. His group develops and utilizes innovative experimental and mathematical approaches to monitor key processes controlling cell suicide and proliferation signalling in the context of human health and disease.

Professor Shaw’s research is focused on circulating nucleic acids for early detection and monitoring of breast and lung cancers. In collaboration with Prof RC Coombes at Imperial College, she leads an integrated programme of clinical and translational research between the two universities funded by a Programme award from Cancer Research UK. Prof. Shaw is internationally renowned for ctDNA profiling expertise. In breast cancer, ctDNA detects relapse up to 2 years ahead of scans. Her lab was the first to depict the tumour and immune system co-evolution through ctDNA for guiding treatment decisions and detecting early-stage cancers through ctDNA in a real-world breast cancer screening setting. She also works with Professor Charles Swanton as part of the TRACERx major national trial analysing genetic changes in the tumours of non-small cell lung cancer patients from diagnosis and through their treatment trial that provided the first evidence of sub-clonal dynamics and chemotherapy resistance before CT scans through ctDNA.

Prof. Sara Zanivan leads the Tumour Microenvironment & Proteomics team and the Proteomics Advanced Technology Facility at the CRUK Scotland Institute in Glasgow. She studied biology at the University of Torino (Italy) and she obtained her PhD degree in System Biology at the Candiolo Cancer Institute, IRCCS, in Candiolo (Italy). Before assuming her current position at the Beatson she joined Matthias Manns’ group at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried (Germany) as a post-doctoral fellow. Prof. Zanivan’s research focuses on cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and aims to elucidate CAF functions and how the interactions between CAFs, cancer cells and blood vessels contribute to cancer progression and metastasis. Her labs’ overarching goal is to identify ways to exploit CAFs to effectively target tumours. She is also an expert in MS-proteomics and with her team uses and develops proteomic approaches tailored to study tumor-stroma interactions.