Critically appraising RadNet Leeds’ work, challenging RadNet’s researchers, and advising on the content and direction of RadNet Leeds’ future research and sustainability
The RadNet Leeds Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is an international panel of physicists, engineers, pathologists and oncologists (see below) who provide independent expert guidance to support the strategic direction, scientific quality and clinical relevance of the RadNet Leeds’ research portfolio. The Board advises on research priorities, emerging scientific opportunities, and the translational potential of projects, helping to ensure that research remains innovative, methodologically robust and aligned with patient and healthcare needs. We have two public and patient representatives on the panel who provide an essential perspective to the SAB, ensuring that research priorities, decisions, and activities remain relevant, inclusive, and responsive to the needs and experiences of patients and the wider public.
Annual Scientific Advisory Board meeting
Every year, we present a detailed report of progress and future plans to the SAB. The SAB offers constructive challenge and oversight, reviews RadNet Leeds’ progress against the ten key objectives for which we were awarded CRUK funding, and provides recommendations to strengthen research excellence, collaboration, impact and external visibility. Through the combined expertise of its members, the SAB helps to ensure that RadNet Leeds’ activities maintain the highest standards of scientific rigour while delivering meaningful benefits for cancer patients and clinical practice.
Summary of 2026 SAB meeting: feedback and recommendations
The Scientific Advisory Board chair
Professor Anthony Chalmers, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Professor of Clinical Oncology
Professor Anthony Chalmers is Chair of Clinical Oncology at the University of Glasgow, Director of the Cancer Research UK RadNet Centre Glasgow+ and Co-Director of the Scottish Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence. His clinical practice at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre is devoted to the treatment of patients with brain tumours, and he runs the Translational Radiation Biology laboratory in the School Cancer Sciences. His main research ambition is to improve outcomes for patients with glioblastoma by combining radiotherapy with drug therapies that target the DNA damage response, but his interests and activities extend across other cancers of unmet need.
He was a co-recipient of the BIAL Award in Biomedicine 2023 and received the European Society of Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) Interdisciplinary Award in May 2024. In June 2025 he was awarded the Weiss Medal by the UK Association for Radiation Research.
The Scientific Advisory Board
Professor Kristy Brock, University of Texas
Medical Physicist and Professor of Imaging Physics
A medical physicist and professor with tenure in the Department of Imaging Physics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, with joint appointments in Radiation Physics (Radiation Oncology) since 2016. Kristy is also an Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University (since 2022). Professor Brock earned her BS (1999), MS (2000), and PhD (2003) in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences from the University of Michigan, is board certified by the American Board of Radiology (since 2008) and holds a Texas Medical Physicist license. She founded and directs MD Anderson’s Image Guided Cancer Therapy (IGCT) Research Program (since 2017). Her work focuses on image-guided cancer therapy, adaptive radiotherapy, deformable image registration, biomechanical modeling, and AI-enabled image analysis. She is a Fellow of AAPM (2015), ASTRO (2023), and AIMBE (2023)
Professor Frederik Maes, University of Leuven, Belgium
Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Leuven, Belgium
Professor Maes’ research interests focus on: medical image computing methodologies, applications and analysis; Multimodality image registration; Model-based image segmentation; 3D image visualization.
Professor Iris Nagtegaal, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Professor of Gastrointestinal Pathology
Professor Nagtegaal studied both Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, where she graduated in 1998 and 1996. She pursued her PhD at the same university and graduated with honors in 2002 (“Pathological aspects of rectal carcinoma”, AstraZeneca Research Award for the best gastrointestinal PhD thesis in the Netherlands). She did her pathology training at the Radboudumc and Leeds University. Subsequently, she became a fellow of the Dutch Cancer Society and further trained in pathology (Netherlands Cancer Institute), population screening (Falun Lasarett, Sweden), molecular pathology (Baylor College Houston) and mathematical statistics (Queen Mary University of London). After returning to Nijmegen, she has published over 495 peer reviewed papers and given over 110 international invited lectures. She is editor of the WHO Classification of tumors of the digestive system (5th and 6th edition), was chair of the Dutch nationwide pathology databank Palga (2010-2023), Series champion of the ICCR digestive tract datasets, expert panel member for lower gastrointestinal cancer of the UICC (2011-2019) and AJCC (from 2020), director of the Advanced Training Center of the European Society of Pathology for Colorectal Cancer Screening and Chair of the European Society of Pathology Taskforce for Synoptic reporting.
Professor Karen-Lise Spindler, Aarhus University, Denmark
Clinical Professor of Oncology
Professor Spindler’s research interests focus on: radiotherapy; treatment and development of gastrointestinal cancer care including anal cancer; clinical studies aiming to integrate ctDNA into the transformation of cancer treatment.
Professor Ivan Richter Vogelius, University of Copenhagen
Professor of Medical Physics, University of Copenhagen
Professor Vogelius’ research interests focus on: Bioeffect modelling of radiation time dose effect; modelling of acute and late radiation damage of normal tissues; statistical modelling of tumour control as function of radiation dose and timing based on clinical outcome data.
Hilary Stobart, Public and Patient Involvement representative
Public and Patient Involvement representative, United Kingdom
Hilary Stobart has been involved as a patient in cancer research since she participated as a patient in a breast cancer clinical trial in 2009. She is a past member of the NCRI CT-Rad group and is currently involved in a number of funded studies, in the areas of breast cancer and radiotherapy, including PRIMETIME, SMALL, HER2-RADICAL and KORTUC. She has served on the NIHR RFPB East of England and the Breast Cancer Now Catalyst funding committees and is a member of Breast Cancer Now’s Tissue Bank advisory board. She also is a trustee member of Independent Cancer Patients’ Voice.
Dr Helen Bulbeck, Public and Patient Involvement representative
Public and Patient Involvement representative, United Kingdom
Helen has experienced cancer from a carer and patient perspective. This 360-degree view means that she is well placed to understand the perspectives of patients, carers and health care professionals and is skilled in PPI advocacy.
Her roles in brainstrust, a national brain cancer charity which she founded,and as a consumer representative are as a disseminator of information and the provision of a network and community, so that she can provide advice on achieving effective consumer involvement and creating a voice. Helen’s key drivers are the patients, their carers and healthcare professionals, with whom she interacts daily. Her ethos of ‘none of us is as smart as all of us’ is a core value for her.