Theme 2 – Re‑irradiation: from discovery to delivery

Associate Professor, Clinical Oncology

Staff Profile: Dr Louise Murray | School of Medicine | University of Leeds

I am an Academic Clinical Oncologist. My PhD, completed here in Leeds, focused on technical radiotherapy for prostate cancer. This involved radiotherapy treatment planning, normal tissue complication probability, tumour control probability and second malignancy risk estimations.

My research interests include re-irradiation (delivering radiotherapy to a previously irradiated region), the implementation of modern imaging technologies in the radiotherapy treatment planning pathway, radiotherapy for brain and pelvic malignancies, the appropriate implementation of new technologies into the radiotherapy clinic and patient reported outcomes in response to radiotherapy.

Professor of Cancer Medicine and Immunotherapy; Consultant Medical Oncologist

Staff Profile: Professor Adel Samson | School of Medicine | University of Leeds

I am a Professor of Cancer Medicine and Immunotherapy and a Consultant Medical Oncologist specialising in the treatment of liver cancers. My research spans multiple key steps in clinical immunotherapy development, including pre-clinical laboratory conceptualisation and optimisation, early phase clinical trials, and translational studies using clinical trial samples. My laboratory group focuses on harnessing the immune system to treat solid malignancies, optimising the efficacy and delivery of immunotherapies to tumours, and understanding the immunological effects of radiotherapy, histotripsy and oncolytic virus therapy. As Chief or Principal Investigator, I lead a portfolio of translational clinical trials focused on oncolytic viruses and liver cancers.

Associate Professor, Radiotherapy Physics

Staff Profile: Dr Ane Appelt | School of Medicine | University of Leeds

I am a cancer researcher, clinical trialist, and medical physicist. My research focuses on improving patient outcomes through the development and implementation of optimised treatment strategies and novel technological innovations in radiotherapy. My interests include reirradiation, radiotherapy for organ preservation, clinical trial design and delivery, and the application of data science in radiation oncology. I am a strong advocate for research that is both clinically relevant and translatable into practice. This includes a core belief in the importance of clinical trials as a critical means for evaluating radiotherapy innovation. I lead a competitively funded, multicentre, randomised dose-escalation trial in rectal cancer and am involved in over a dozen other trials. I am primary or co-investigator on active grants totalling over £5.6 million.

As well as co-leading Theme 2, I am the co-lead for RadNet Leeds Theme 1 Work Stream 2, which applies federated and deep learning  to multimodal radiotherapy data for outcome prediction and treatment optimisation.

Group Leader, DNA repair, DNA damage response, BRCA1, DNA repair pathway choice, structural biology

Staff Profile: Dr Qian Wu I Faculty of Biological Sciences I University of Leeds

My group is studying the fundamental mechanism of how cells respond and deal with DNA damage. Human cells are under constant threat of damage from external and internal sources. One of the most dangerous forms of damage is to DNA. Accumulated DNA damages lead to cell death and genome instability, which can cause cancer, neurodegenerative disease and ageing. Maintaining the integrity of genetic information stored in DNA through various damage response and repair signalling pathways are critical for cellular function and cell survival. We focus on the structural determination of key protein complexes function in DNA damage response (DDR) and repair. Together with various biochemical/biophysical methods and cellular studies, we would like to work out the exact mechanisms in human DDR and repair network.

Research interests

We study DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), which are the most toxic damages in cells. Through our research, we would like to identify suitable targets to develop small molecule compounds that modulate the DNA damage response and repair signalling for future drug discovery, medical applications and ultimately killing cancer cells specifically.

Principal Clinical Scientist

I am a RadNet Principal Clinical R&D Scientist, having worked in radiotherapy since 2002. I have been active in research for a number of years with a focus on reirradiation treatment planning. After successful work on novel treatment planning tools for reirradiation in collaboration with commercial partners, this will continue to be a focus of RadNet. I am also working on deformable image registration and robustness tools both key requirements for the reirradiation planning implementation.

In my clinical role at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, I support evaluation and implementation of external beam developments, leading the implementation of complex treatment techniques including paediatric planning.

Honorary Clinical Consultant

Staff Profile: Dr Fin Slevin I School of Medicine I University of Leeds

Fin is an honorary consultant in clinical oncology and future leader at Cancer Research UK RadNet Leeds. He commenced a five-year NIHR Advanced Fellowship in April 2025. MAPP-RT (Modelling and Patient Perspectives to optimise Pelvic Radiotherapy) will see Fin collaborate with multidisciplinary radiotherapy teams from Leeds and Manchester to analyse radiotherapy planning and toxicity data from multiple clinical trials of pelvic radiotherapy in prostate cancer. This work will evaluate spatial relationships between the radiation dose received by normal tissues and development of toxicity. Combined with qualitative research to understand patients’ perspectives, MAPP-RT will enable Fin to develop, implement and evaluate novel methods for pelvic radiotherapy planning which aim to minimise risk of toxicity. The project is strongly aligned with Theme 1 Personalised and Adaptive Radiotherapy and, through its use of clinical trial data in recurrent prostate cancer, will support reirradiation research in Theme 2. To read a Plain English Summary of Fin’s research and to follow updates, see his Fellowship webpage.

Professor of Cancer Biology

Staff Profile: Professor Richard Bayliss I Faculty of Biological Sciences I University of Leeds

Our research aims to understand the molecular mechanisms that cause disease and to develop new or improved therapies. We research the protein kinases associated with cancer signalling pathways, the transcription factor Myc, the assembly and function of the spindle assembly, proteostasis and structure-based approaches to drug discovery. We also have interests in synthetic biology, microcephaly and in kinases associated with infectious disease.

Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute

University of Cambridge Department of Biochemistry

Staff Profile: Professor Steve Jackson I Department of Biochemistry I University of Cambridge