About the Editors

Editor-in-Chief

 

Jeff Evans, MB, BS, MD, FRCP, FRCPE, FRCPGlasg, FACP (UK), University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Jeff Evans is a Group Leader (Translational Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory) at the CR-UK Beatson Institute, Glasgow, Professor of Translational Cancer Research and Director of the Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow, and Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Glasgow, and Lead of the Glasgow Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC).

His research interests are in the pre-clinical and clinical development of novel anti-cancer agents, and his clinical interests are in Upper GI Cancers and Melanoma, and he leads the Phase I clinical trials and drug development team in Glasgow. He is a member of the NCRN Upper GI Cancer Pancreatic Cancer and Gastro-Oesophageal Cancer sub-groups, member of the ECMC - Industry Combinations Alliance Joint Steering Committee, member of CR-UK's Clinical Experts Review Panel, and former member of Cancer Research UK's New Agents Committee. 

Subject Editors

Cellular and Molecular Biology

Jun Yang, MBBS, MS, PhD, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA

ORCID: 0000-0002-4233-3220

Jun Yang is an Assistant Member in the Department of Surgery at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He obtained his medical degree (MBBS) in Qingdao Medical College, and Master in Medicine at The National Institute for Biological and Pharmaceutical Products in Beijing, where he cloned the genotype 4 of hepatitis E virus and a series of novel strains of TT virus. Jun Yang obtained his PhD degree under the supervision of Dr. Margaret Ashcroft, in the Department of Cancer Therapeutics at the Institute of Cancer Research in UK, where he studied the regulation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1. Jun Yang joined Dr. Adrian Harris’s laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University, where he studied hypoxia-mediated epigenetic regulation through histone demethylases. Jun Yang then joined St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, as a postdoctoral research fellow, to continue studying the functions of histone demethylases in pediatric cancers and develop novel anticancer therapies, where he was promoted to be a faculty member in Department of Surgery. Jun Yang is a Research Scholar of American Cancer Society.

His main research interests focus on epigenetic mechanisms in oncogenesis by using cutting-edge technologies (i.e., scRNA-seq, spatiotranscriptomics, ChIP-seq/Cut&Tag, genome-wide CRISPR editing), generation of transgenic mouse models to understand the mechanism of tumor initiation and progression, design translational therapies using high-risk pediatric cancer models, and drug development by using medicinal chemistry and biophysical approaches.

Clinical Studies

Russell D Petty, BMSc(hons), MB, ChB, PhD, MRCP(UK), MRCPE, FRCP, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

Russell Petty headshotProfessor Russell Petty is Chair of Medical Oncology at the University of Dundee and a Consultant Medical Oncologist at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. He is Director of Tayside Medical Science Centre and Tayside Clinical Trails Unit in the School of Medicine at the University of Dundee and Director of Research and Development for NHS Tayside in which roles he provides leadership for the design and delivery of more than 250 clinical trials. His research interests are in gastroesophageal cancer involving laboratory research, early and late phase clinical trials. He has been involved in the successful delivery of more than 150 cancer clinical trials and experimental cancer studies. Developing precision medicine strategies to tackle treatment resistance is a key current research aim. His clinical and research advisory roles include to the Chief Medical Officer (Scotland), Scottish Parliament, Chief Scientist (Scotland), NCRI, NICE, SMC, EORTC, ESMO and IGCC.

Epidemiology

Rulla M Tamimi, ScD, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

Rulla Tamimi is a Professor of Population Health Sciences and Division Chief of Epidemiology in the department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. As the Associate Director for Population Science at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, she works closely with an interdisciplinary group of investigators to study cancer risk and survival with the goal of reducing morbidity and mortality in the New York City area.

Her research goal is to better understand breast cancer risk and prognosis by designing epidemiological studies that integrate biomarkers, imaging and lifestyle factors. Specifically, her research has focused on intermediate markers of breast cancer risk including mammographic density and benign breast diseases. As PI of multiple NIH-funded grants to understand risk factors for breast cancer, her group has identified a number of genetic, molecular and lifestyle predictors of breast cancer risk and survival. Many of these studies are based within the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII). She led research on breast cancer and served as PI of the Nurses’ Health Study, and Growing Up Today Study (GUTS) before starting at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Genetics and Genomics

Angela Cox, PhD, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

ORCID: 0000-0002-5138-1099

Angela Cox is Professor of Cancer Genetic Epidemiology at the University of Sheffield, UK, where she is an executive member of the Sheffield Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) and the Sheffield Institute for Nucleic Acids (SInFoNiA), and Deputy Head of the Department of Oncology and Metabolism. She obtained BA in Natural Sciences (genetics) from the University of Cambridge and PhD in molecular biology from University College London, and has been working in the area of genetic epidemiology and genomics of cancer since 2000.
Professor Cox’s research is focussed on inherited cancer susceptibility variants and circulating tumour DNA biomarkers. She collaborates in a number of international genetics consortia including BCAC, Interlymph, and ILCCO. She is interested in the mathematical modelling of the functional effects of inherited variants, and the development of new statistical genomics approaches. The Cox lab is a collecting centre for the Breast Cancer Now Tissue Bank, specialising in longitudinal blood sampling for circulating tumour DNA analysis, and she is exploring predictive and prognostic circulating DNA markers in a number of common cancers.

Molecular Diagnostics

Daniel T. Merrick, MD, FCAP, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA

Daniel Merrick headshot

Dan Merrick is the Director of the Thoracic Surgical Pathology Service and sub-section Associate Director in the Colorado Molecular Correlates clinical laboratory at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.  He is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and in Molecular Genetic Pathology.

His long-standing research interest has been in premalignancy, initially beginning with studies of Human Papilloma Virus associated cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and subsequently focusing on studies of premalignant lesions of the lung.  Work in bronchial dysplasia, a precursor of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, is focused on better understanding the role of inflammation and cell cycle dysregulation in progression of these lesions.  Recent ongoing support has also extended work to analyses of precursors of lung adenocarcinoma and neuroendocrine tumors of the lung.  He is the overall lead for the Biospecimen Unit of the Lung Pre-Cancer Atlas supported by the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) of the National Cancer Institute and the congressionally mandated Cancer Moonshot program.  He is the co-chair of the HTAN Clinical and Biospecimen Working Group.  He is also the chair of the Department of Defense’s Lung Cancer Research Program Vision Setting and Integration Panels.

Translational Therapeutics

Suzanne Fuqua, PhD, MS, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

ORCID: 0000-0001-8886-5161

Suzanne Fuqua is internationally recognized for her work on estrogen receptors in breast cancer. She was the first to discover constitutively active and hypersensitive estrogen receptor (ESR1) mutations in breast tumors, which has recently been confirmed by a number of investigators using next generation sequencing. It is estimated that approximately 20-40% of therapy-resistant metastatic breast tumors contain constitutively-active ESR1 mutations. She is thus a pioneer in this field.

Recently she also discovered that the androgen receptor (AR) was overexpressed in metastatic ER-positive tumors resistant to tamoxifen, and her preclinical studies have demonstrated that AR overexpression confers resistance to hormonal agents. Her work provided scientific rational for ongoing clinical trials of AR antagonists in ER-positive breast cancer.

Suzanne Fuqua is a translational scientist with many years' experience in molecular biology, functional genomics, precision medicine, steroid receptors, cell signaling and growth factor receptors.

Associate Editors

 

Maria Libera Ascierto, BS, MS, PhD, Saint John Cancer Institute, Santa Monica, CA, USA

Dr Maria Libera Ascierto is Director of Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Department and Associate Professor of Translational Immunology at Saint John Cancer Institute in Santa Monica.  Dr.  ML Ascierto  is widely regarded as an expert in cancer immunology and ImmunOtherapy (IO).  Dr ML Ascierto has co-authored significant scientific papers on key immunotherapeutic targets and biomarkers (e.g. STK11mut, NKG2A, PD-L1, TIGIT, IFNg) associated with  the activity of checkpoint blockade in solid tumors  thus leading to the development of multiple IO-clinical trials currently explored, in adjuvant and neoadjuvant setting, in patients with advanced melanoma, bladder cancer and NSCLC.

Simon J Crabb, BSc, PhD, MBBS, MRCP, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

ORCID: 0000-0003-3521-9064

Simon Crabb headshot photo

Simon Crabb is Professor of Experimental Cancer Therapeutics within the School of Cancer Sciences at the University of Southampton and an Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. He is the Associate Clinical Director of Southampton Clinical Trials Unit and the Clinical Programme Lead for Southampton Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre.  He has held memberships of the NCRI Bladder and Renal Group, the NCRI Prostate Group and the Experimental Medicine Expert Review Panel for Cancer Research UK and undertaken advisory roles for Prostate Cancer UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS England. He is Chair of the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership for Bladder Cancer and past chair of the NCRI Advanced Bladder Cancer Subgroup. His research is focused on developing novel treatment strategies for cancer including interests in precision medicine approaches for bladder and prostate cancers, mechanisms of cancer therapy resistance and epigenetic therapeutics.

Jonine D. Figueroa, PhD, MPH, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA & University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Jonine Figueroa headshot photoJonine Figueroa, Ph.D., M.P.H. is Senior Investigator at the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Figueroa is an internationally recognized expert in breast cancer epidemiology. As a leader of integrative molecular epidemiologic research with a focus on global health, she investigates risk factors associated with breast cancer incidence and mortality in diverse populations.

Takatsugu Ishimoto, MD, PhD, The Cancer Institute, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Tokyo, Japan

Takatsugu Ishimoto is a Group Leader (Gastrointestinal Cancer Biology) at International Research Center of Medical Sciences (IRCMS) in Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan. He received an M.D. from Kumamoto University School of Medicine in 2001. After completing the surgical residency-fellowship program (2001-2006), he received a Ph.D. degree at Kumamoto University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in 2009. He then finished a post-doctoral fellowship in Prof. Hideyuki Saya’s Lab at Keio University Graduate School of Medicine (2009-2011). After that, he was promoted to an Assistant Professor and have been engaged in surgical clinical practice and cancer research at Kumamoto University Hospital (2011-2014), and then also worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Prof. Patrick Tan’s Lab at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore (2014-2016). His main research interests focus on are tumor microenvironment, cancer metabolism, cancer stem cell biology in gastrointestinal cancers including pancreatic cancer and HCC.

Charles H. Lawrie, MA (Oxon), D.Phil., Biodonostia Health Research Institute, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain

ORCID: 0000-0002-8882-1131

Prof. Charles Lawrie is Director of the Oncology Research area of Biodonostia Institute, San Sebastián, Spain. An Ikerbasque Research Professor, Marie Curie Fellow, Fellow of Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath), University Research lecturer of the University of Oxford and Visiting Professor of Shanghai University. He did his first degree and masters in Biochemistry (BA, MA (Oxon)) and doctoral degree (DPhil) at Trinity College, University of Oxford before setting up the lymphoid malignancy research group (LMRG) in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NDCLS), part of the Medical Sciences Division of the University of Oxford based at the John Radcliffe Hospital. He has published >110 scientific articles, books and book chapters and is a pioneer in the field of cancer liquid biopsies with the first description of miRNAs biomarkers in the blood of cancer patients. He serves on the editorial board of eleven journals and is associate editor of British Journal of Cancer (Nature) and Biochemistry and Biophysical Reports (Elsevier). He is the co-founder and CEO of Indicate Solutions S.L. (Spain), CSO (and co-founder) of Repvit UK Ltd and director and co-founder of Indicate Biotech (Shanghai).

Sara Lindström, PhD, MSc, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

ORCID: 0000-0002-7137-7281

Sara Lindstroem is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at University of Washington (UW), the Institute for Public Health Genetics at UW, and the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Her research focuses on understanding the genetic contribution to diseases with an emphasis on cancer and related traits. By leveraging large-scale population-based studies, she studies how our genetics and environment affect disease risk. She leads multiple international efforts to study genetic risk factors for cancer and mammographic density, and she is also studying the genetics underlying a range of outcomes in people living with HIV.

Helen J Mackay, MBcHB, MD, MRCP, Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre & University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Prof. Helen MacKay is a Medical Oncologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She is Head of the Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology at the Odette Cancer Centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and Senior Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. Dr. MacKay's clinical practice and research focus is on gynecological cancers. Her research involves collaborating with translational and basic scientists in the development and validation of novel therapeutic strategies. She is the current President of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology of Canada (GOC). She co-chairs the NCI (US), Ovarian Cancer Task Force. She is the past chair of the Ovarian Group and sits on the executive of the Gyne committee of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG), and represents CCTG at the Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup. She is a past chair of both the Gynecologic Cancer Education and Scientific Committees for ASCO. With specific reference to uterine cancers, she is a member of the TRANSPORTEC group, and sits on the Corpus Committee of NRG, and was the co-chair of the NCI Endometrial Cancer Clinical Trials Planning Committee.

Massimiliano Mazzone, PhD, VIB-KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

ORCID: 0000-0001-8824-4015

Massimiliano (Max) Mazzone graduated in Medical Biotechnology at the Medical School of the University of Torino, Italy, and then performed his PhD in Cell Science and Technologies at the Institute for Cancer Research of Torino, under the supervision of Prof. Comoglio. In November 2006, he moved to Belgium as an EMBO-awarded postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Peter Carmeliet, at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Since October 2009, he is heading the Lab of Tumor Inflammation and Angiogenesis, at the Center for Cancer Biology, part of VIB in Leuven, and, since 2017, he is Full Professor at the University of Leuven. From April 2019, Max was nominated Professor at the University of Torino where he is also visiting scientist at the Molecular Biotechnology Center. Max Mazzone has contributed to the field of oncology understanding the mechanisms of cancer metastasis and to vascular biology identifying a new endothelial cell phenotype, the "phalanx" cell, which takes part in the formation of aligned blood vessels in perfused tissues. Since end of 2009, he is independent group leader and his team is focusing in studying the response of inflammatory cells to hypoxic and metabolic conditions in order to restore blood flow and regulate favorably the immune response in conditions such as cancer and ischemic pathologies. From there, Max got other important national and international awards (the Lorini Award, the Belgian Royal Academy Prize, Giulia Colletta Award, EMBO awards, Chiara D’Onofrio Award, AstraZeneca Award, Burgen Award and others) and international recognitions (including 4 ERC grants: ERC Starting, ERC Proof-of-concept, and currently an ERC Consolidator, and a second ERC Proof-of-cocept). Max Mazzone was first EMBO Young Investigator and since 2021, EMBO Member. Until February 2022, Mazzone has authored 147 papers papers (of which 26 as senior author), with an average impact factor in first or senior corresponding author research papers of 15.48; more than 16000 citations; and an H-index of 53. He is member of the boards of several peer-reviewed journals (such as Cancer Research and Immunometabolism), he is reviewer for almost 20 journals, and he has been so far invited to speak in more than 120 international conferences (including GRC, Keystone, AACR, EMBO and FEBS meetings, Cell symposia, Cold Spring Harbor Conferences, ESMO, EACR, etc.) and in more than 80 institutional seminars. The translation and valorization of his work is proven by ongoing clinical trials, two spin-offs, a prospective study, numerous industrial collaborations (more than ten), drug screening programs, several (licensed) patents and the launch of two spinoff companies of which he is the scientific founder, Oncurious and Montis Biosciences.

Timothy J Price, MBBS, FRACP, DHlthSc, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital/University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

ORCID: 0000-0002-3922-2693

Professor Tim Price is Medical Oncologist and Head of Clinical Cancer Research at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide South Australia. He is a Professor at the University of Adelaide, and visiting Professor Antwerp University Belgium and University of Sydney, Sydney Australia. In addition, Tim is Medical Director of the Cancer Program (Central Adelaide Local Health Network), Laboratory Head of the Solid Cancer Group Bazil Hetzel Institute, Board Director for the Australasian Gastrointestinal Trials Group (AGITG) and the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia. His major clinical and research focus is on Gastrointestinal cancers, Neuroendocrine malignancy and Phase I clinical trials.

Salma Shariff-Marco, PhD, MPH, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

ORCID: 0000-0002-2541-3333

Dr. Salma Shariff-Marco is a social and behavioral scientist with a research portfolio focused on understanding the role of structural and social determinants of health in shaping and perpetuating health disparities. One main area of focus is on place and health, evaluating how neighborhood characteristics (e.g., social, built, and physical environment attributes) and geographic variation may shape cancer-related health behaviors and outcomes across the cancer continuum. In addition, her research includes efforts to better characterize neighborhoods for population health studies (neighborhood archetypes, virtual audits with Google Street View). Another area of research includes understanding how factors related to social status (race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and immigration) impact health disparities, particularly applying an intersectional lens. Dr. Shariff-Marco is also a co-Investigator of the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry, a part of the California Cancer Registry and the NCI Surveillance Epidemiology End Results (SEER) Program.

Lizong Shen, MD, PhD, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

ORCID: 0000-0002-9046-6140

Lizong Shen headshot photoLizong Shen, M.D., Ph.D. is a senior surgeon and Professor of Surgery at Department of General Surgery in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Dr. Shen majors in surgical treatment for gastrointestinal neoplasms. His main research interests focus on stomach carcinogenesis and mechanisms underlying progression and metastasis of gastric cancer through research of tumor microenvironment.

Robert J. Williams, PhD, Cancer Research UK Centre for Drug Development, London, United Kingdom

ORCID: 0000-0002-9340-3153

Rob Williams is Chief Drug Development Scientist at Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development. At CRUK Rob has overseen the delivery of over 25 drug candidates into first-in-human clinical trials including cell therapies, vaccines, antibodies and small molecules. Rob has a PhD in pharmacology and previously held scientific leadership positions in metabolic and inflammatory diseases with Glaxo and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer. He has also worked in biotech and during his time at Prolifix, led on the pre-clinical characterisation and early development of Belinostat, now an approved medicine for the treatment of peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Rob acts as a scientific advisor for a number of both non-commercial and commercial research organisations, lectures in drug development on several MSc courses, is a trustee of the PTEN research foundation and co-founded Duke Street Bio, an Immuno-oncology-focused drug discovery company.

Ying S. Zou, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

ORCID: 0000-0003-2787-1917

Ying Zou headshot photoYing Zou, M.D., Ph.D. FACMG is an expert in clinical molecular diagnostics and cytogenetics. She is Director of the Cancer Genetic Laboratory at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Associate Director of Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory (Johns Hopkins Genomics), and Associate Professor of Pathology and Genomic Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Zou actively develops clinical molecular diagnostic and cytogenomic tests that can be used in the clinical setting for better patient care, personalized medicine, as well as discovers disease variants and novel cancer biomarkers. She has been involved in multiple clinical trials and has published more than 90 peer-reviewed journal articles. 

Dr. Zou is also active in the training of residents and fellows in several training programs and medical students for molecular diagnostics. She was recognized with The Best Attending Pathologist Teacher in Clinical Pathology. She is an active committee member of professional societies such as American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG), Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), College of American Pathologists (CAP), Cancer Genomics Consortium (CGC), and Association of Genetic Technologists (AGT), etc., as well as an editor, board member, and associate editor for professorial journals.  

 

Reviews Editor

 

Veera Panova, PhD, Babraham Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom

ORCID: 0000-0001-8433-6430

Veera Panova is a postdoctoral scientist at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM). She did her first degree and Master of Research degree in London and then completed her PhD at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.

Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

 

Adrian L Harris, BScHons, MBChB, MA DPhil, FRCP, FMedSci, MD, DSc, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

ORCID: 0000-0003-1376-8409

Adrian 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 Chairman of the CRUK Oxford Cancer Centre and joint lead of the Cancer theme of the Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre in Oxford. 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.

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. 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 and molecular pathology to translate laboratory findings to clinical relevance and development of new agents.