News

New trial of personalised cancer treatment begins in Oxford

The first human trial of a pioneering personalised cancer treatment developed at Oxford University will begin this week, with the potential to tackle a wide range of late-stage cancers.

A major challenge in drug development is that all cancer patients respond differently to treatment, making it difficult to know how best to treat each patient. For the first time, a phase I trial in Oxford will investigate not only a new drug, called CXD101, but also a new test to predict which patients could be successfully treated by this class of drug.

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CRUK Programme Grant Success for Len Seymour

Len Seymour’s programme, with co-PI Kerry Fisher, has just been successfully reviewed and renewed by Cancer Research UK for another five years. Len’s work over recent years has been developing a tumour-selective virus that can be given intravenously to infect metastatic cancer, and to proliferate and lyse the cells, allowing spread through tumour masses.

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Professor Peter O'Neill Receives 2014 Failla Award

Professor Peter O’Neill of the Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, has been awarded the 2014 Failla Award from the Radiation Research Society.

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Department of Oncology recognised with Athena SWAN bronze award

The Department of Oncology, along with five other Departments at the University of Oxford, has been successful in achieving Athena SWAN bronze status in the latest round of awards.

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Major EPSRC Programme Grant to Support New Oxford Centre for Drug Delivery Devices

Cancer therapy drugs tend to achieve limited accumulation and poor penetration in tumours, reducing their effectiveness. For many years, the only methods used to improve drug uptake by tumours have been pharmacological, and these have had limited success.

Recent research at Oxford University has shown that physical mechanisms triggered by ultrasound, magnetic fields or shock waves can dramatically improve the delivery and penetration of existing and experimental drugs into tumours.

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Nature Genetics Paper published by Professor Kristijan Ramadan Group

Recent work by Professor Kristijan Ramadan, Associate Professor and MRC Senior Group Leader in the University of Oxford's Department of Oncology, his team Dr. Bruno Vaz, Swagata Halder and Judith Oehler, and colleagues from across the world has discovered a gene which is directly related to both ageing and cancer.

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New Cancer Research Partnerships Announced

We are excited to announce two large new partnerships in cancer research that will build on the world class, innovative work already taking place across Oxford today. Though administered through the Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, these developments will impact research across our membership.

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Scientists under fire awarded the 2014 John Maddox Prize for Standing up for Science

Freelance journalist Dr Emily Willingham and early career scientist Dr David Robert Grimes (Department of Oncology) have been awarded the international prize for courage in promoting science and evidence on a matter of public interest, despite facing difficulty and hostility in doing so.

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Professor Gillies McKenna Receives Gold Medal

Professor Gillies McKenna, Head of the Department of Oncology, has been awarded the Gold Medal by the Royal College of Radiologists in recognition of the outstanding contribution that he has made to the field of radiation oncology.

At the award ceremony, held in London in November 2014, Professor McKenna also delivered the twelfth David Skeggs lecture, entitled Imaging and Targets: The Molecular Frontiers in Radiation Oncology.

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Oxford Medical Sciences excels in REF 2014 exercise

Today’s Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) results confirm the University of Oxford’s world leading position in medical sciences research.

Furthermore, the University overall has the largest volume of world leading research and impact submitted to the REF exercise.

The Department of Oncology is part of the Medical Sciences Division and submitted under Clinical Medicine, a unit of assessment in which we ranked top for overall quality.