Summer Meeting Faculty

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Senior Lecturer in Medical Oncology

Alastair Greystoke

Dr Greystoke joined Newcastle University and the Northern Centre for Cancer Care in 2014. He is one of 3 consultants that run the Sir Bobby Robson Early Clinical Trials Centre at the Freeman hospital in Newcastle, and has a special interest in the development of new anti-cancer drugs for patients with thoracic malignancies. In addition he is the Clinical Lead for Cancer for the Yorkshire, Hull and North East England Genomic Laboratory Hub, the Joint Chief Investigator of the CONCORDE platform (adding in new drugs to radical radiotherapy in lung cancer), and leads the Pharmacodynamic Biomarker team at Newcastle University Cancer.

Consultant Clinical Oncologist

Clive Peedell

Dr Clive Peedell is Consultant Clinical Oncologist and clinical lead for Radiotherapy at the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough. He specialises in the management of lung cancer, prostate cancer and oligometastatic disease, and has a major interest in the development of the Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR/SBRT) services, both locally and nationally. He was a founding member of the UK SABR Consortium and is currently an Executive committee member. He has worked with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Radiotherapy to campaign for wider adoption of SABR services in the UK. He is also a member of the Steering Committee of the British Thoracic Oncology Group (BTOG).

Consultant in Medical Oncology

Colin Lindsay

Dr Lindsay is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Medical Oncology at the University of Manchester and the Christie NHS Foundation Trust. He is a past recipient of IASLC fellowship and young investigator awards, a PhD studentship from the Medical Research Council, and the Association of Cancer Physicians’ McElwain Prize. He trained at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute and Cancer Centre in Glasgow, where he completed a PhD studying genetically-modified mouse models of RAS- and RAF-driven melanoma. He shifted focus to lung cancer ten years ago through a two year ESMO translational fellowship at the Gustave Roussy Cancer Centre in Villejuif, France. His main interests are 1) the implementation of effective treatment strategies for cancers driven by RAS and the MAP kinase pathway, and 2) establishing an improved clinical network/pathway to support patient advances in large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma.

Deputy Director - NHS Cancer Programme

Dan Cariad

Dan Cariad is Deputy Director – Programmes for the NHS Cancer Programme. Dan has over ten years experience working on cancer related issues across the charity sector and NHS. Having joined the NHS cancer programme in 2015, Dan has worked across a number of areas, including on the independent Cancer Taskforce, Operational performance, and now leads delivery of key programmes such as Targeted Lung Health Checks, the Faster Diagnosis programme, and the cancer programme’s Innovation workstreams.

Consultant Respiratory Physician

David R Baldwin

David Baldwin works as a consultant respiratory physician sub-specialising in lung cancer, mesothelioma and interventional procedures. He is Chair of the UK Clinical Expert Group for Lung Cancer. He is Honorary Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham. He has obtained research grants from a variety of charities and NIHR in total over £35M as principal and co-applicant. His primary research interests are in CT screening and lung cancer epidemiology. He was lead respiratory physician on the UK CT lung cancer screening trial (UKLS). He has published over 230 papers including three influential guidelines. He has held the positions of Honorary Secretary of the British Thoracic Society, Clinical Lead on the NICE Lung Cancer Guideline Development Group (2011), Chair of the NICE Quality Standards Group on Lung Cancer (2012) and Clinical Director of the East Midlands Cancer Alliance (2017-20). He works with the UK Health Security Agency and the National Cancer Research Institute and is Chair of the Screening Prevention and Early Diagnosis Group. He is associate editor for the journals Thorax, Lung Cancer and European Radiology. He enjoys time with his family and is a keen windsurfer and advanced instructor.

Consultant Respiratory Physician

Emma O’Dowd

Dr O’Dowd is a consultant respiratory physician at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. She was awarded a PhD in lung cancer epidemiology in 2017, funded by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. Her research interests are lung cancer screening, early diagnosis and epidemiology of lung cancer. She is a member of the National Cancer Research Institute Screening, Prevention and Early Diagnosis Group, British Thoracic Society Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma Advisory Group and Lung Cancer Clinical Expert Group

Director of Research and Innovation and Consultant in Medical Oncology

Fiona Blackhall

Fiona Blackhall is the Director of Research and Innovation and a Medical Oncologist at The Christie Hospital, and Professor of Thoracic Oncology at The University of Manchester, England. She trained in Manchester and Toronto between 2001-2003. She is the Clinical Translational and Biomarkers Theme Lead for the Cancer Research UK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence, Clinical Lead of the Greater Manchester Cancer Genomics Pathway Board and Chair of the Advanced Disease Subgroup of the UK NCRI Lung Cancer Research Group. She has served as Co-chair of the Translational Subgroup of the European Thoracic Oncology Platform and has been a faculty member for The European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), The European Lung Cancer Conference, The American Society of Medical Oncology Annual Meeting and The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. In Manchester, she has created an environment for research spanning lung cancer biology, liquid biomarkers, novel therapies, phase I-III clinical trials, radiotherapy and supportive care. She has collaborated with Professor Caroline Dive since 2007 on internationally leading research in circulating tumour cells. She is an advocate of team science and has enjoyed numerous other collaborations with like-minded colleagues across the globe with the collective aim to make lung cancer a less deadly disease.

Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine

James Spicer

James Spicer is Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine in the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Studies at King’s College London, and Consultant in Medical Oncology at Guy’s & St. Thomas’ Hospitals. He has a degree in biochemistry, and a PhD in cancer biology. Prof Spicer’s interests include drug development, immunotherapy and thoracic oncology.
He established and runs a Phase I clinical trials programme in solid tumour oncology at Guy’s Hospital, where the portfolio of studies includes novel immunotherapies discovered and developed at King’s. He directs the King’s Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC), funded by Cancer Research UK and the National Institute for Health Research. He is Director of the NIHR Guy’s & St Thomas’ Clinical Research Facility.
Prof Spicer is a member of Medical Research Council’s Experimental Medicine Panel, and the Oncology/Haematology Expert Advisory Group of the UK government’s Commission for Human Medicines.

Consultant Medical Oncologist

Joanne Evans

Dr Joanne Evans is a Consultant Medical Oncologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, where she specialises in both the treatment of thoracic malignancies and Acute Oncology. Joanne completed her medical training at Barts and The London, and trained as a medical registrar on the ‘Imperial rotation’, rotating through Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Chelsea and Westminster and Brighton. She holds a degree in Genetics, and completed her D.Phil at Oxford University, where she looked at signaling cross-talk between DNA repair pathways and Mitogen-Activated-Protein-Kinase pathways.

As a basic medical scientist at heart, she is especially interested in and motivated by molecular stratification of lung cancers to influence better treatments, both in terms of the identification of new drivers and bringing new molecularly targeted treatments to patients but also the identification of biomarkers of a poorer response to treatment and aggressive disease.

She is also an Honorary Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London, and has been an invited lecturer for various organisations including the Institute of Cancer Research, where she teaching on systemic therapies in lung cancer, the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh and the British Thoracic Oncology Group. She is an active contributor to undergraduate teaching and training at Imperial College, London and within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Consultant Clinical Oncologist

John Conibear

Dr John Conibear graduated from the University Hospital of Wales in 2001 and completed his post-graduate general medical training in The Barts and The London Training rotation in 2006.
Before gaining his substantive post as a consultant clinical oncologist in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 2014, he completed a 2-year fellowship with the NCRI Radiotherapy Trials Quality Assurance Group in Mount Vernon Hospital. During his fellowship he conducted research into techniques to improve clinician target outlining during radiotherapy planning and was subsequently awarded a MD(Res) from UCL in 2018.
Dr Conibear is currently interim Divisional Director for Barts Clinical Services, Deputy Medical Director of Barts Cancer Centre and Deputy Director of Barts Cancer Centre. He is also the lead for chemotherapy and clinical director for thoracic oncology in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He is currently the centre lead for the GenesisCare radiotherapy department in the Cromwell Hospital. Dr Conibear is the oncology clinical lead for the RCP National Lung Cancer Audit (NLCA).
Dr Conibear specialises in all the non-surgical treatments for both lung and breast cancers. He has expertise in chemotherapy, biological therapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, and state of the art radiotherapy techniques. Dr Conibear is also trained in using state of the art radiotherapy technologies and techniques including the ViewRay MRIdian MRI-guided linac, Accuray Cyberknife, Leksell Icon Gamma Knife and Proton Therapy. These technologies are used to deliver stereotactic ablative body or brain radiotherapy (SABR / SRS).

Consultant Thoracic Pathologist

John Gosney

PROFESSOR JR GOSNEY

Professor John Gosney is Consultant Thoracic Pathologist at Liverpool University Hospitals and Professor of Thoracic Pathology at the University of Liverpool. He also holds a Visiting Professorship in Thoracic Pathology at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.

Professor Gosney is responsible for the service in diagnostic thoracic pathology provided for the city of Liverpool via the Liverpool University Hospitals and the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and, in collaboration with the North West Genomics Pathology Hub, for the service in the predictive profiling of lung cancer provided for greater Merseyside. He has internationally acknowledged expertise in the pathology of tumours of the lung, especially in neuroendocrine tumours and their precursor lesions, and in the genomic and proteomic pathology of non-small cell lung cancer and its application to management. He has published over 200 papers, reviews, guideline documents and chapters in books. He has been author of the Royal College of Pathologists’ datasets and guidelines for the handling and reporting of pulmonary specimens and a contributor to the World Health Organization’s classification of tumours of the lungs and pleura. He is President of the Association of Pulmonary Pathologists. He works widely with the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries advising on the development and application of diagnostics to the targeted therapy of lung cancer.

In 2017, Professor Gosney received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Thoracic Oncology Group for his contribution to thoracic oncology.

Consultant Clinical Oncologist/Associate Professor

Kevin Franks

Dr Kevin Franks is a Thoracic Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Deputy Director for the Leeds NIHR Clinical Research Facility and the Clinical Lead for Oncology Research and Innovation at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Following a 2-year research fellowship at the Princess Margaret Hospital/University of Toronto in technical lung cancer radiotherapy he returned to Leeds and was the clinical lead for the team that implemented lung Stereotactic ABlative Radiotherapy (SABR) in Leeds in 2009. Leeds was the first centre in the UK to use this innovative technique and have treated more than 2000 patients since 2009. He was a founder member of the UK SABR Consortium and the ex-chair of the UK SABR Research Sub-Group.
He was the co-chair of national guidelines for; National Cancer Action Team (NCAT) Image-Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT) working group -national guidelines (published 2012) and On Target 2: updated guidance for image-guided radiotherapy. Radiotherapy Board (Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine/College of Radiographers/Royal College of Radiologists) (published 2021).
He is an Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, and his research interests are in Lung Cancer including technical radiotherapy, SABR, cancer informatics, quality of life, patient optimization and novel agent/SABR+RT combinations.
He was the chief investigator for the NIHR funded SABRtooth trial or SABR versus Surgery, is the co-chief investigator of the YCR funded PREHAB trial looking at exercise, diet and smoking cessation in curative lung cancer patients receiving radiotherapy and is also involved in many national and international trials in lung cancer RT and SABR including trials of RT combined with novel therapies and trial of new agents/chemotherapy in the advanced disease setting.

Medical Oncology Consultant

Marcus Remer

Dr Marcus Remer attended the University of Bristol medical school and graduated in 2006 with two degrees. He completed his first two clinical years in Bristol and Bath before moving to King’s College Hospital, London, where he worked in Emergency Medicine and went on to complete Core Medical Training in London and successful completion of the Royal College of Physician’s Membership examinations. He gained early experience working in oncology in Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, London and St Luke’s Cancer Centre in Guildford before taking up a formal national training post in Medical Oncology at University Hospital Southampton. During his training Dr Remer was awarded CRUK funding to become a Clinical Research Training Fellow and successfully completed a PhD in Cancer Immunotherapy. His novel research was published in a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal. Dr Remer has published articles in multiple peer-reviewed journals and has authored several book chapters in oncology. Following his return to clinical training, Dr Remer completed the Royal College of Physician’s Medical Oncology specialty examination. Dr Remer joined Hampshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as a substantive consultant in Medical Oncology in April 2019. He specialises in treating breast and lung cancers, cancer of unknown primary and is the trust lead for the Acute Oncology Service. His interests include Cancer Immunotherapy, Molecularly Targeted Therapy and Precision Oncology involving Comprehensive Genomic Profiling. He setup and leads the regional Wessex Lung Cancer Molecular Tumour Board. Dr Remer lectures at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, MSc Course for oncology trainees.

Consultant Medical Oncologist

Mary O’Brien

Professor Mary O’Brien is a consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London treating patients with thoracic malignancies.
She is also Professor or Practice in Medical Oncology at the Imperial College London.
Professor O’Brien has a long history of clinical trials in all aspects of lung cancer diagnosis and treatment and lectures widely, has many mentees and students and over 250 peer reviewed publications.
She has recently edited the 1st and now the 2nd edition of ‘Fast Fact in Non Small cell lung cancer’ – a book for all health care professionals.
Keeping this topical, Professor O’Brien is part of a group conduction a randomised study of acupuncture in patients, with cancer who have also long COVID.
She conceived and has been principal investigator for the Keynote 091/Pearls trial on behalf of the international investigators and now present it and have written the manuscript.
Professor O’Brien was awarded a life time achievement award in Jan 2022 by the British Thoracic Oncology Group.

Consultant Respiratory Physician

Matthew Callister

Mat Callister
Professor, Consultant Respiratory Physician, St James University Hospital
Prof Callister trained in Oxford, London and Yorkshire and was appointed as a Consultant Respiratory Physician in Leeds in 2008. His research interest is the early detection of lung cancer. He is clinical lead for the Leeds Early Lung Cancer Project, and co-chaired the BTS Pulmonary Nodule Guideline.

Consultant Clinical Oncologist

Matthew Hatton

Dr Matthew Hatton graduated from Leeds where he completed his general medical training. He undertook his specialist oncology training at the Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow before taking his current post at Weston Park in 1997.
Dr Hatton was appointed as Honorary Professor at the University of Sheffield in 2016 and is the current Chair of the National Cancer Research Institute Lung Cancer Study Group. He serves on the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Education Board. His research interests include functional imaging for radiotherapy planning, novel radiotherapy applications and fractionations being Chief Investigator for a number of national lung cancer, sarcoma and cardiac radiotherapy studies.

Consultant Medical Oncologist

Meenali Chitnis

Dr Meenali Chitnis BMedSci (Hons), MBBS (Hons), Dhil, FRCP
Consultant Medical Oncologist, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Meenali Chitnis is a Consultant Medical Oncologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where she specialises in treating thoracic malignancies. Having graduated with Honours from St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2000, she undertook specialist oncology training in London and Oxford. She was awarded a Cancer Research UK Fellowship for her DPhil studies at The University of Oxford, which focused on signalling pathways and DNA repair in cancer.

Dr Chitnis is Departmental Lead for the Lung Cancer service in Oxford and is a member of the Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network Lung Cancer Alliance group. Dr Chitnis is the Oxford Lung Cancer Research Lead and is the Principal Investigator on a diverse portfolio of clinical trials. She is committed to improving patient pathways and access to the latest treatments and innovation.

Consultant Medical Oncologist

Nicola Steele

Dr Nicola Steele is a consultant medical oncologist at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in Glasgow. Following undergraduate training in medicine and pharmacology and subsequent medical rotations in Glasgow, Dr Steele trained in oncology in New Zealand, Edinburgh and Glasgow and gained PhD in cancer therapies, prior to taking up an NHS consultant post at the Beatson in 2009. Since then she has developed a key role in building the lung team systemic therapy trials portfolio and is PI on a variety of studies in lung cancer and mesothelioma. In 2015 she was awarded an NHS Research Scotland (NRS) career researcher fellowship to support clinical trials in thoracic cancers. She is currently leading on developing the SACT aspects of the national lung clinical management pathway.

Professor of Respiratory Medicine

Richard Booton

Richard Booton MBChB, PhD, FRCP has been a Consultant Respiratory Physician in the North West Lung Centre for 11 years & Clinical Director for Lung Cancer & Thoracic Surgery at Wythenshawe Hospital since 2018. He is an honorary chair in Respiratory Medicine at The University of Manchester. Graduated from The University of Leeds and completed higher specialist training in the North West followed by a fellowship in thoracic oncology at The Christie Hospital and Paterson Institute for Cancer Research with Professor Nick Thatcher receiving a PhD in 2006. Richard is the Programme Director for the Award winning RAPID programme and Manchester Lung Health Check/ Lung cancer screening programme.  His clinical research interests include clinical care in thoracic oncology, advanced bronchoscopy and lung cancer screening. I am a member of the MesoTRAP Trial Steering Group and Principal Investigator (Manchester) for EARL and ELUSIVE multicentre studies, Co-investigator for Yorkshire Lung Screening Trial and Co-chair YLST Biomarker Subgroup.  Published over 70 peer-reviewed publications.  Additional affiliations/memberships include with the British Thoracic Oncology Group, the Council of Regents, the Communications Committee for the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, the Clinical Advisory Group of the National Lung Cancer Audit, the NHSE Expert Advisory Group on Lung Cancer Screening and the NHSE National Delivery Group for Lung Health Checks.

Consultant Medical Oncologist

Riyaz Shah

Dr Riyaz Shah qualified from Guy’s and St Thomas Hospitals in 1994 and obtained Membership of the Royal College of Phyisicans of London in 1997. He completed junior medical training in London and was subsequently awarded an Imperial Cancer Research Fund Clinical Research Fellowship that led to the completion of a PhD from Imperial College/Hammersmith Hospital (1998-2001). His research focused on gene transcriptional irregularities in cancer and gene therapy. Dr Shah completed Medical Oncology training at The Royal Marsden Hospital (2002-2006) before being appointed as a Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Kent Oncology Centre (2006-). He was awarded an ASCO Foundation Merit Award in 2005 for his work in a cancer known as carcinosarcoma.
Dr Shah specialises in thoracic and gastrointestinal malignancies and provides NHS clinics at Darent Valley, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospitals. He is active in several local and national committees. At the time of writing he is the Chairman of the Lung Tumour Site Specific Group for the Kent Cancer Collaborative, Lead for Research at KOC, Member of the NCRI Lung Clinical Studies Group and Member of the Thoracic Surgery Clinical Reference Group. He has a major interest in clinical research and acts as principal investigator on many trials in Kent. He was the UK Chief Investigator of the Lux LUNG 5 trial. He has published widely and is regularly invited to speak at local, national and international meetings.

Professor of Thoracic Oncology

Robert Rintoul

Robert Rintoul is Professor of Thoracic Oncology in the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician, Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge. He trained in respiratory medicine in London and Edinburgh receiving his doctorate from the University of Edinburgh for work investigating mechanisms underlying resistance to chemotherapy in small cell lung cancer. Professor Rintoul is lead clinician for cancer at Royal Papworth Hospital and Director of the Papworth Trials Unit Collaboration. He is co-lead for the CRUK Cambridge Centre Thoracic Cancer Programme and co-ordinates thoracic oncology research across Cambridge. Since 2021 he is Chair of the Clinical Advisory Group of the UK Lung Cancer Coalition.

Professor Rintoul’s research is focused on clinical trials, translational research and tissue banking in malignant mesothelioma and the early detection of lung cancer. In 2014 he founded Mesobank, the UK national bioresource for malignant mesothelioma (www.mesobank.com) which supplies many research groups nationally and internationally.

His work is funded by the Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Cancer Research UK, National Institute for Health Research and Asthma and Lung UK.

Chair Steering Committee / Professor

Sanjay Popat

Professor Sanjay Popat is Consultant Thoracic Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Professor of Thoracic Oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research. Professor Popat has published in the fields of genetics, therapeutic biomarkers and medical oncology. He has been awarded nationally and internationally competitive prizes for his research, in addition to 4 research fellowships. He has published over 150 papers and is an active member of the EORTC Lung Group, has been elected to the Foundation Council of ETOP and is past chair of the UK NCRI Lung Cancer CSG Advanced Diseases Subgroup. Professor Popat joined the BTOG Steering Committee in 2010 and was elected Chair of the Steering Committee in 2013.

Consultant Medical Oncologist

Shobhit Baijal

Dr Shobhit Baijal is a Consultant Medical Oncologist based at The University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust. He obtained a BSc Honours in immunology and cell pathology from University College London, before graduating with a medical degree from St Bartholomew’s Medical School in 2001. Dr Baijal returned to the Midlands to complete his general medical and oncology training and took up post as Consultant Medical Oncologist in September 2011.
He actively treats lung and colorectal cancer patients at the Heartlands, Good Hope and Solihull sites. He specialises in all forms of cancer drug treatment including chemotherapy, immuno-oncology, precision oncology and chemo-embolisation.
Dr Baijal has a large clinical trial portfolio and is UK Chief Investigator and Principle Investigator for national and international clinical trials. He has numerous publications and regularly presents at regional, national and international cancer meetings. He is on the BTOG Steering Committee and also sits on the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation advisory panel.

Senior Lecturer in Health Economics

Tristan Snowsill

Tristan Snowsill is a health economist specialising in economic evaluation, which is research to determine the costs and health benefits of different options. He has previously led a health technology assessment of lung cancer screening (LCS) and is currently developing a new natural history model for lung cancer to be used in an updated health technology assessment of LCS. Outside LCS he has conducted model-based and trial-based economic evaluations of pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests and physical activity interventions. Up to 2017 he was a member of the Peninsula Technology Assessment Group (PenTAG) and contributed to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Technology Appraisal and Diagnostic Assessment Processes.

Consultant Medical Oncologist

Yvonne Summers

Dr Summers studied undergraduate medicine at the University of St Andrews and the University of Manchester, graduating in 1993 and subsequently completed higher specialist training in Medical Oncology at the Christie Hospital, Manchester between 1997 and 2004. During this period she was awarded a doctorate for research in the field of stem cell biology.
In 2004 she commenced her first post as consultant medical oncologist in the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre, Belfast, where she concentrated her efforts on establishing a medical oncology service for lung cancer patients and introducing clinical trial research.
She returned to Manchester in 2009, where she specialises in thoracic oncology, is Clinical Director for Medical Oncology at the Christie Hospital.
In addition to the clinical service, she has experience as UK chief investigator and principal investigator in commercial and academic clinical studies. She influences lung cancer research & treatment through work NHS England’s lung cancer clinical expert group (CEG) and as a clinical expert for NICE technology appraisals and was a previous member of the NIHR clinical studies group (CSG) and Chair of the LORD subgroup of the lung CSG and previously chaired the Christie Drugs and Therapeutics Committee.