Our Team

Professor Eric Aboagye is Professor of Cancer Pharmacology & Molecular Imaging and Director of the CRUK-EPSRC-MRC-NIHR Comprehensive Cancer Imaging Centre. His research interests focus on the discovery, development and clinical translation of novel methods for cancer molecular imaging to help clinicians understand the biology of cancer in vivo. He has also acted as an advisor to GE-Healthcare, GSK, Roche and Novartis.

Professor Kevin Brindle is a Professor of Biomedical Magnetic Resonance at the University of Cambridge and a senior group leader in the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. His research interests focus on the development of magnetic resonance techniques for investigating the biochemistry of cells and tissues. His research also focuses on the development of novel imaging methods to detect cancer progression and to monitor early tumour responses to treatment, with an emphasis on translating these techniques to the clinic.

Professor Dow Mu Koh is a Consultant Radiologist and Professor in Functional Cancer Imaging at The Royal Marsden and the ICR. His research interests focus on the development of functional imaging techniques for tumour assessment. He has a broad interest in applying MRI, CT and PET imaging for clinical and functional measurements. He focuses in particular on developing and evaluating diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) for improving detection and characterisation of tumours, and monitoring of responses to conventional and novel therapeutics.

Professor James O’Connor is a Consultant Radiologist and Professor of Radiology at the ICR. He is a CRUK advanced clinician scientist Fellow. He was previously a full time Professor of Radiology at The University of Manchester (UoM) until June 2020. He continues to work one day a week for UoM to facilitate delivery of multicentre clinical studies between the ICR, Manchester and other UK centres and is the NCITA lead for UoM. His research specialises in developing and validating novel imaging biomarkers, and applying them to clinical studies to aid clinical decision-making. He oversees the NCITA training and education programme in cancer imaging throughout the UK.

Professor Tong Ng is the Richard Dimbleby Professor of Cancer Research at KCL and Professor of Molecular Oncology at UCL.  He directed the CRUK-funded KCL-UCL Comprehensive Cancer Imaging Centre 2008-2018. His research interests focus on combining tissue and circulating exosome based omics with clinical imaging to develop targeted treatments for breast and lung cancer patients.

Professor Geoff Higgins is an academic Clinical Oncologist at Oxford University. His specialist clinical and research interests focus on the development of treatments that can be combined with radiotherapy in order to provide better outcomes for patients. He leads clinical trials utilising hypoxia imaging to assess the efficacy of hypoxia modifying drugs in lung cancer patients.

Professor Shonit Punwani is a Consultant Radiologist and Professor of Magnetic Resonance and Cancer Imaging at UCLH, where he leads MRI and radiology research and is responsible for the provision of clinical trial imaging services. He is Director of Clinical Imaging at the UCLH Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and directs the BRC Medical Imaging Trials Unit dedicated to support clinical trials involving novel imaging methods. He has a specialist clinical and research interest in the development of local and whole-body quantitative and functional MRI methods for imaging prostate cancer.

Professor Ruth Plummer is a Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at Newcastle University and an oncologist specialising in early phase trials and treating patients with melanoma. Based in Newcastle, she directs the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre, and leads the CRUK Newcastle Centre and Newcastle Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC). At a national level, she sits on CRUK’s Clinical Research Committee, chaired the CRUK New Agents Committee 2012-2019 and is a member of the NIHR Efficiency and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) board, MRC Precision Medicine Group and the NCRI Strategy Advisory Group.

Professor Hing Leung is Professor of Urology and Surgical Oncology at the University of Glasgow and CRUK Beatson Institute. His pioneering research has validated the significance of key signalling pathways, such as the Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor (FGFR) and the MEK5/ERK5 systems, as prognostic markers and targets for therapy in clinical prostate cancer. This has resulted in large multi-disciplinary academia-industry collaborations in drug discovery programmes. His group work closely with colleagues in the NHS, University of Glasgow and the CRUK Beatson Institute to develop infrastructure required for the necessary biorespository and other ongoing translational research programmes.