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From our Head of Department

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Professor Mark Middleton

Welcome to the The Department of Oncology. The Department of Oncology's mission is to improve cancer care through research and teaching. There is strong emphasis on translation, with established infrastructure to develop scientific insights toward clinical appreciation.

The Department houses over 400 staff and postgraduate students - both clinical and non-clinical - and is one of the largest departments in the University of Oxford's Medical Sciences Division. It is also home to the Institute for Radiation Oncology.

One of the key aims for the Department is to bring together basic scientific and clinical research groups from across Oxford - based in the Old Road Campus Research  Building, the Radiobiology Research Institute, the Weatherall Institute for Molecular Medicine and the NHS Cancer and Haematology Centre - to apply knowledge of cancer and to develop research so that we may better understand how we can combat cancer in the most effective way possible.

MRC Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology

This is the logo for the Medical Research Council - Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology, which incorporates the design elements of the UK Research & Innovation logo. The logo is also accompanied by the traditional University of Oxford blue quadrangle logo set with the Oxford Blue pantone.

The mission of the MRC Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology is to explore aspects of radiation biology research that could yield new advances in the treatment of cancer.




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Division of Cancer Medicine

Division of Cancer Medicine

The aims of the Division of Cancer Medicine are to understand cancer and the biological processes that govern how it starts, how it behaves and how the body responds to it.

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Our News

Reprogramming tumour cells using an antimalarial drug

Results from the ATOM clinical trial at the University of Oxford have shown that the anti-malarial drug Atovaquone can reduce very low oxygen tumour environments. This has the potential to make cancers behave less aggressively and to improve the impact of everyday cancer treatments.

Global Young Scientists Summit 2021

Picture showing the effects in lung function in patients who have contracted COVID-19

Hidden lung damage from COVID-19 revealed in new study

Early findings from a study into longer-term damage amongst patients recovering from COVID-19 suggest that the use of cutting-edge scanning techniques may detect previously unseen lung damage.

Histology and magnetic resonance images from a mouse with breast cancer brain metastases, injected intravenously 2 hours previously with a TNFR1-selective mutant TNF protein. 3 items in the picture: Cresyl violet stained brain section showing location of a micrometastasis. Adjacent brain section stained with Hanker-Yates demonstrates HRP extravasation (brown staining) and, hence, BBB breakdown selectively at the site of metastasis. Post-contrast (gadolinium-DTPA) image from the same mouse showing extravasation of contrast at the metastatic site (hyperintensity) confirming local BBB breakdown. Note, the BBB remains intact in the rest of the brain.

Professor Sibson secures further MRC DPFS funding

Prof. Sibson together with her co-applicants Prof. Anthony, Dr Campbell and Prof. Middleton have now been awarded a second MRC DPFS grant, for £3.3 million, to acquire further preclinical data to support the case for clinical translation, to develop the mutTNF production for human use and to undertake pre-clinical toxicology.

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