Scientific Advisory Panel

Dr Lynley Marshall, MB BCh DCH MRCPCH PhD

Consultant in Paediatric & Adolescent Oncology Drug Development, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust; Honorary Faculty/Senior Lecturer, The Institute of Cancer Research, London

Dr Lynley Marshall is a consultant paediatric oncologist and Paediatric Clinical Research Lead at The Royal Marsden Hospital, London. She heads the Paediatric and Adolescent Oncology Drug Development Team, focusing on early phase clinical trials of experimental therapeutics for high-risk, poor-prognosis malignancies (solid and CNS tumours). She undertook her PhD at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in the field of novel targeted therapeutics for paediatric high-grade glioma. She is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Division of Clinical Studies at The ICR.

She currently chairs the UK’s NCRI Children’s Group Novel Agents Subgroup and is Clinical Trials Theme Co-Lead for the UK’s Paediatric Experimental Cancer Medicines Centre (ECMC) Network. She is a member of the Clinical Trials Committee of the Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer (ITCC) European early phase clinical trials consortium, and of the Executive Committee of the SIOPE-ITCC ACCELERATE multi-stakeholder platform.

Professor Julie Irving

Professor Julie Irving is a scientist at Newcastle University with more than thirty years of experience in the field of leukaemia and is a member of national and international childhood leukaemia groups and steering committees.

Her team focuses on childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and they have successfully translated their experimental findings into the clinic for the benefit of children. 

Professor Zoë Walters

Professor Zoë Walters is Professor of Translational Epigenomics in the School of Cancer Sciences at the University of Southampton, where she co-leads the Innovation for Translation Research Group (ITRG) with Professor Tim Underwood. The ITRG is committed to improving the outcomes of patients with solid tumours of unmet clinical need by delivering better, less harmful and more precise treatments, via a combination of clinical and scientific excellence. Central to this mission is the Strategic Oversight Team (SOT), a group comprising patients, carers and relatives of patients, and a high-performance coach, who work closely with the ITRG at all stages of research to ensure that patient experience, priorities and perspectives remain at the heart of the programme. 

Prof Walters’ research focuses on the genomics and epigenomic regulation of paediatric and adult solid tumours, with a particular emphasis on paediatric and adult soft tissue sarcomas, and oesophageal adenocarcinomas. She leads multiple national and international collaborations that integrate molecular biology, tumour microenvironment analysis, and machine learning to identify new therapeutic vulnerabilities and improve clinical decision-making. Her programme of research spans epigenetic therapies, immunotherapy development, spatial biology, and computational modelling of high-risk cancers, and has contributed to the development of preclinical strategies now informing translational research and clinical trial design. 

Alongside her research, Prof Walters plays an active leadership role within the University of Southampton as Deputy Head of School (Education) and serves on numerous strategic committees. She also contributes widely to the cancer research community through her service on grant review panels, editorial boards, and international clinical and scientific working groups for paediatric sarcoma and neuroblastoma. Prof Walters is committed to training the next generation of cancer researchers, having supervised over 35 postgraduate students across MSc and PhD programmes. 

Dr Olga Slater

Dr Slater has been Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London since 2010. Dr Slater works full time and has an extensive patient cohort. Therefore she works only at Great Ormond Street in her NHS and private patient capacity. 

Dr Slater is the Lead for Sarcoma Services and Clinical Lead for Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH). Apart from the clinical interest, Dr Slater is also the educational and clinical supervisor for clinical fellows/junior doctors providing supervision and training of the new paediatric workforce. 

Dr Slater has clinical and academic research interest especially in the area of sarcoma and Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis. 

Petra Hamerlik

Petra Hamerlik is an accomplished researcher in primary pharmacology and brain cancer research. Her professional career has been a blend of academic and industry roles, including positions at the Danish Cancer Society, Cleveland Clinic, and AstraZeneca.

In September 2022, Petra was recruited to the University of Manchester as the Inaugural Brain Tumour Charity Chair of Translational Neuro-Oncology. Her current work is focused on identifying novel treatments and early detection of intracranial tumours in children and adults. 

Professor Sue Burchill

Professor Sue Burchill graduated with a BSc in Pharmacology (1982) and PhD in Medicine (1986) from the Sunderland School of Pharmacy and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne respectively,   before pursuing a translational research career. After post-doctoral research in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England and The University of Arizona Cancer Centre, USA she moved to Leeds in 1992 to establish the Children’s Cancer Research Group at St James’s University Hospital (SJUH) in Leeds, where she remains the scientific director. Sue is also the CHORAL Director of translational laboratory research for young people and Deputy Head of Molecular Medicine in the Leeds Institute of Medical Research, SJUH. 

Sue has made major contributions to medical research in the field of cancer in children and young people, her leadership in multi-disciplinary collaborative groups includes shaping international strategies for the evaluation of novel circulating biomarkers, identification and advancement of targeted treatments to improve cure rates and minimise treatment associated morbidities.  

Her own research is focussed on strategies to detect and eradicate the metastatic drug-resistant disease that is responsible for progression and relapse in neuroblastoma and bone cancers that affect young people.  

Madeleine Adams

Madeleine Adams is a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at the Children’s Hospital for Wales in Cardiff.

She has a clinical interest in sarcoma and paediatric cancer predisposition and a research interest in quality of life and patient reported outcomes 

Vincenzo D’Angiolella

Vincenzo D’Angiolella is Charles and Ethel Barr Chair of Cancer Research at The Institute for Genetics and Cancer within the University of Edinburgh. He previously worked as Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Oxford where he served as director of the Master Course in Radiation Oncology within the Department of Oncology. His research group focuses on understanding the role of the ubiquitin system in cancer pathogenesis and response to treatment with chemo- and radiotherapy.  

He is currently holding two programme grants from the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and Medical Research Council (MRC), focused on the role of Cullin Ring ubiquitin Ligases (CRLs) in brain cancers (medulloblastoma and glioblastoma) pathogenesis. Studies from his laboratory have uncovered the mechanism of action and function of Fbxl17 in medulloblastoma and highlighted a novel synthetic lethal interaction between cyclin F loss and Chk1 kinase inhibition.

More recently, the laboratory has identified that mutations occurring on the E3 ligase KBTBD4 in medulloblastoma change substrate specificity driving the recognition of the chromatin remodelling complex CoREST. This work describes the first neomorphic mutation in an E3 ubiquitin ligase and elucidates a novel mechanism of tumorigenesis in medulloblastoma. In addition, research from his group uncovered novel targets in glioblastoma through CRISPR screen, elucidating an axis required for DNA repair in mitosis.  

Vincenzo has a Medical Degree (MD) from the University of Naples “Federico II” and completed his PhD at the same University in the field of General Pathology. During his PhD utilizing X. Laevis as a model system, he investigated the process of mitosis and spindle checkpoint. 

Following the completion of his studies, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the New York University School of Medicine in the USA in the laboratory of Professor Michele Pagano. During the postdoctoral studies, he elucidated the mechanism-of-action and function of cyclin F, the founding member of the F-box proteins. He uncovered that cyclin F does not partner with Cyclin Dependent Kinases (CDKs) like other cyclins do, but acts as an E3 ubiquitin ligase, forming a canonical CRL1.