INCISE

Professor Joanne Edwards is Professor of Translational Cancer Pathology (School of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow) and Director of Glasgow Tissue Research Facility (Queen Elizabeth University Hospital) and works closely with the Academic Unit of Surgery (Glasgow Royal Infirmary).

Joanne has a BSc in Pharmacology from University of Glasgow and a PhD in Molecular Biology from University of St Andrews. Notably, despite being a non-clinical researcher, her contribution to the field of cancer biomarkers resulted in her being elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. She has a successfully funded portfolio of multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed research, over 200 publications, over 15,000 citations and an H index of 65.

Her research focuses on how biomarkers can be employed as prognostic and predictive markers in cancer management. The overarching aim of her team is to better understand the determinants of short and long-term outcomes in patients with colorectal cancer. Of particular interest is the relationship between the local and systemic inflammatory responses, tumour microenvironment and cell signalling with a view to taking such knowledge into the routine clinical management of colorectal cancer. Central to this work is the team’s large colorectal tissue banks with matching clinical information allowing identification of clinically relevant prognostic and predictive biomarkers. Expertise in this area led to her interest in developing a risk stratification score to predict the risk of developing future polyps and hence the INCISE collaborative. As director of INCISE, Joanne oversees the program as a whole and has specific interest in work packages 2-7.

Dr Gerard Lynch is the INCISE Project Manager and provides both operational and strategic leadership. Gerard has over 15 years of experience in Biomedical research and project management. He completed his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Leeds. After working as a research scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC for six years, he returned to the UK and has been working at the University of Glasgow since 2018.

Stephen McSorley is currently a Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Colorectal Surgeon based at the University of Glasgow. He qualified from the University of Glasgow Medical School in 2009, and undertook his foundation, core and higher surgical training in the West of Scotland. He completed his PhD in colorectal cancer surgery at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 2019 and was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 2021. Prior to his current appointment he undertook a Royal College of Surgeons Senior Clinical Fellowship in minimally invasive colorectal cancer surgery. His research interests include the influence of the postoperative systemic inflammatory response on morbidity and long-term survival after surgery for colorectal cancer and the early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer in symptomatic and screened populations.

Professor Katie Robb leads the Cancer Behaviour Research Group at the University of Glasgow. Katie has an MA in Psychology from the University of St Andrews and an MSc and PhD in Health Psychology from University College London. Katie is passionate about reducing inequalities in cancer and her research focuses on optimising early detection and diagnosis behaviours. Her research includes advancing the co-design of interventions to improve access to cancer screening for all.

Dr Pamela McCall has taken on the role of Manager of the Glasgow Tissue Research Facility. She completed her PhD in Molecular Pathology at the University of Glasgow and her experience in cancer tissue histology, tissue microarrays and digital pathology provides a unique skill set required for this role. Pamela brings extensive experience in managing academic and industrial laboratories. For the past 6 years she was Team leader and the research and development project leader in the Cell biology department at SB Drug Discovery. Prior to this she worked in academia focusing on signal transduction pathways and the androgen receptor in prostate cancer progression for 14 years at both University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde.

Judith Dixon is a Project Manager with over 15 years’ experience in Clinical Trials. Judith started working as a trial coordinator for the Clinical Trials Unit at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in 2008 before becoming a Project Manager. She joined the University of Glasgow in September 2018 working for the Glasgow Precision Oncology Laboratory and now the Genomics Innovation Alliance (GIA). Judith will be the liaison between the INCISE and GIA teams and will coordinate receipt of samples into the GIA lab and the timely release of sequencing data to the INCISE team.

Dr Philip Dunne is a Reader in Molecular Pathology, in the Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research at Queen’s University Belfast, and Group Leader at the CRUK Scotland (Beatson) Institute. His translational research programme primarily focusses on the identification, mechanistic interrogation and therapeutic targeting of the biology (particularly tumour-immune-stromal interactions) underpinning disease relapse in early-stage colorectal cancer.

Dr Dunne is PI on a CRUK consortium aimed at developing molecular risk stratification approaches for patients diagnosed with T1 tumours via bowel cancer screening, and leads translational research work-packages within the CRUK International CRC pre-clinical accelerator programme (ACRCelerate), the MRC-funded National Mouse Genetics Network (NMGN) Cancer Cluster and the MRC/CRUK joint-funded Stratification in colorectal cancer programme (S:CORT). His research programme has enabled the development of a number of novel resources to align biomarkers to patient data and the most appropriate model(s), which may help in improving the translation of mechanistic science into clinical trials.

Gabriel is a Project Manager at OracleBio, a global leader in quantitative digital pathology providing image analysis services to Pharma and Biotech clients worldwide. He joined the company in 2020 after completing his Engineering Doctorate in medical image processing at the University of Strathclyde. As the lead for the organisation's R&D group, Gabriel manages its project pipeline and leverages the team's programming and scientific skills to optimise and expand the capabilities of OracleBio's image analysis workflows.

Gabriel is the Digital Pathology work package lead for INCISE, in charge of developing deep learning algorithms to generate quantitative data from histopathology slides, and establishing an automated, scalable and high-throughput image analysis workflow.

Professor Neil Hawkins holds a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Bristol, Masters Degrees in Health Economics (York) and Applied Statistics (Sheffield), and also an MBA from the University of Oxford.  He has over 17 years experience in the field of health technology assessment and has participated in over thirty health technology assessments covering a wide variety of clinical areas.  Previously, he was a Reader in Health Technology Assessment at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Vice President leading the global Health Economics practice at ICON plc.

Neil's research focuses on evidence synthesis and decision analytic modelling, precision medicine and early stage health technology assessment. He also acts as a consultant in health technology assessment to the pharmaceutical and device industries providing both strategic and analytic advice, and has acted as an external consultant on the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Scientific Advice programme.

Dikshyanta is a Research Associate at the Health Economic and Health Technology Assessment (HEHTA) research group at the University of Glasgow. She holds a BA (Hons) Economics with Psychology and Sociology as additional subjects, and an MSc in Health Economics from the University of York.  With over 5 years of experience, Dikshyanta has expertise in economic evaluations, decision-analytic modelling, linked health data analysis and evidence synthesis. Her research focuses on developing and applying Health Technology Assessment methodologies in various fields, including cardiovascular diseases, learning disabilities, oncology and women's health. Additionally, she is interested in the field of precision medicine and AI-driven health technologies. She is also involved in a wide range of teaching activities within HEHTA and represents early career researchers at the Scottish Health Economics Early Career (SHEEC) network.