The role of our Independent Scientific Advisory Panel is to evaluate all grant applications, and recommend to the Board of Trustees the grants that are suitable for funding.
The panel is comprised of experts who review all our grant applications for relevance, scientific merit, cost and suitability of the applicant. They also conduct interviews for Studentship and Fellowship applications.
The Bone Cancer Research Trust are committed to funding research in a fair and transparent manner, supporting research of the highest quality and most likely to succeed. To do this, we must ensure that those involved in funding decisions do so in an independent manner and do not have conflicts of interest that might see them benefit personally or academically from a funding decision.
Therefore, we have developed a conflict-of-interest policy to maintain our position as a transparent funder and to protect those who freely provide their time to our charity from any accusations of bias.
The Bone Cancer Research Trust ISAP Conflict of interest policy can be found here.
The Bone Cancer Research Trust lay review /PPIP Conflict of interest policy can be found here
The Bone Cancer Research Trust Terms of Reference for ISAP can be found here.
Members of the Independent Scientific Advisory Panel
Chair: Professor Steven Clifford
Newcastle University, UK
Professor Clifford is Chair of Molecular Paediatric Oncology and directs the Newcastle University Centre for Cancer. He co-leads the Childhood Brain Tumour Research team, with major interests in understanding the biological basis of embryonal brain tumour development (principally medulloblastoma), and translating these findings into improved clinical treatments.
Professor Clifford also plays leading roles in national (CCLG, NCRI) and international (SIOP-Europe, ITCC-Brain) research networks and clinical trials in medulloblastoma and is passionate about training the next-generation of cancer researchers and clinicians.
Prof. Clifford is Chair of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) CNS tumours group. He sits on steering committees including the Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group executive and ITCC-Brain committee, and on advisory panels for organisations including The Brain Tumour Charity (SAB Chair), Cancer Research UK, The Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, The French National Cancer Institute (INCa) and The Singapore Medical Research Council. He is a Trustee of the JGWP charitable foundation and 'Children with Cancer in Malawi', a charitable outreach programme for children’s cancer care in Africa.
He was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2021), and awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (2022), in recognition of his achievements in translational paediatric oncology.
Dr Paulo Ribeiro BSc MSc PhD
Senior Lecturer and Group Leader, Bart's Cancer Institute, UK
Dr Ribeiro completed his undergraduate studies in the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, where he studied Microbial Biology and Genetics. He then entered the Gulbenkian PhD Programme in Biomedicine at the Gulbenkian Institute, which included one year of classes and laboratory rotation. This allowed him to undertake his doctoral research at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, supervised by Prof Pascal Meier, in the characterisation of the role of inhibitor of apoptosis proteins in the regulation of cell death and innate immunity.
In 2009, he joined Dr Nicolas Tapon's laboratory at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, where he studied the mechanisms regulating tissue growth, namely the Hippo tumour suppressor signalling pathway.
In August 2013, he joined Bart’s Cancer Institute in the Centre for Tumour Biology. His research group uses the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism and his research has three major areas of focus: role of ubiquitylation in the regulation of tissue growth; role of reversible ubiquitylation in tissue invasion; and modelling tumour heterogeneity
Dr Eleni Tomazou PhD
Scientific Director & Principal Investigator, St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI), Vienna, Austria.
Assistant Professor of Sarcoma Biology, Medical University of Vienna, Austria
Dr Nathalie Gaspar
Paediatric oncologist, Institut de Cancérologie Gustave Roussy, France
Dr Nathalie GASPAR, MD, Ph, is a paediatric oncologist at Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus (Villejuif, France), head of the adolescent and young adult (AYA) unit and chair of the AYA programme of the institute (SPIAJA programme), since 2009. She is in charge of bone sarcomas, cancers with peak incidence in the AYA population, from biology to clinical care. Dr Gaspar is also paediatric head of the French bone adult and paediatric sarcoma group, GROUPOS. She is actively involved in early new drug development in France and in Europe, through her participation to the clinical trial committee of the Innovative Therapeutics for Child and adolescent with Cancer (ITCC) consortium and through her action as co-chair of the Fostering Age Inclusive Research (FAIR) trial initiative of the multi-stakeholder ACCELERATE platform.
Professor Didier Surdez
Head of Tumour Research Balgrist University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland
Professor Surdez studied pharmacy and graduated in 2001 at the University of Basel (Switzerland). He then moved to Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL (Switzerland) where he obtained is PhD in 2007. After a post-doctoral stay in Professor Olivier Delattre's laboratory, in 2014, he was appointed as senior scientist at the Institut Curie in Paris. In 2021, he moved to the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and is now Head of Tumour Research at the Balgrist University Hospital where his research focuses on the genetic vulnerabilities of bone sarcomas and on the identification of therapeutic vulnerabilities against these cancers.
His research on Ewing sarcoma has highlighted key EWSR1-FLI1 targets (PRKCB), vulnerabilities (PARPi) and secondary alterations (STAG2) in this cancer. Since 2012, he has been actively involved in the EE2012, rEECur and Combinair3 clinical trials. To address key questions around tumour heterogeneity, plasticity and to identify novel therapeutic strategies, he has established over 80 PDX models of paediatric solid tumours.
Dr Apostolos Tsiachristas
University of Oxford, UK
Dr Apostolos Tsiachristas is a Research Fellow at Green Templeton College and an Associate Professor in Health Economics at the University of Oxford.
Apostolos has a joint post at the Department of Primary Care and the Department of Psychiatry to lead a programme of research that focuses mainly on the economic evaluation of new models of care and financial incentives in healthcare, particularly for people with mental health conditions and multi-morbidity.
He also leads the Oxford Mental Health Economics and Policy (OMHEP) group, holds honorary research position at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (UK GOV), and acts as a scientific consultant for the World Health Organization on topics related to health financing.
Dr Tsiachristas’ work has influenced health policy and clinical guidelines, for example, the Early Intervention in Psychosis Programme of NHS England, and the Cervical Cancer Screening Programme of Public Health England.
Prior to his current position, Apostolos undertook research at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and consultancy work at Aarts Public Economics in The Hague.
Professor Paul Cool
The Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt (RJAH) Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Oswestry, UK
Professor Paul Cool is Consultant Orthopaedic and Oncological Surgeon at The Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt (RJAH) Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Oswestry.
Professor Cool undertook his medical training in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. After qualifying in 1988, he moved to the UK to complete his basic surgical rotation in Birmingham, followed by his specialist orthopaedic training in Oswestry. He was appointed Consultant Orthopaedic & Oncological Surgeon at RJAH in 2000, specialising in bone and soft tissue sarcomas as well as foot and ankle surgery.
Professor Cool’s clinical research interests include orthopaedic oncology, primary bone tumours (benign and malignant), sarcomas (soft tissue and bone), metastatic bone tumours, infection and tumour-like conditions. He has extensive experience in analysis of big data, computer vision, genomic analysis and statistical modelling. In addition, Professor Cool is statistical advisor to the European Journal of Hand surgery. Awards include the Meridian Award for integrating genomics into clinical care and 2015 peer review award.
Professor Cool is a member of a number of professional bodies, including the British Orthopaedic Association, British Orthopaedic Oncology Society and European Musculo-Skeletal Tumour Society and British Sarcoma Group. He is past president of the British Orthopaedic Oncology Society.
Dr Sébastien Wälchli
Department of Cellular Therapy, Oslo University Hospital, Norway
Dr Wälchli is a senior scientist (group leader) at the translational research unit (TRU) of the Department of Cellular Therapy (Oslo University Hospital). He has changed fields of research several times during his career and started to learn lab techniques in bacterial genetics in the late 90s in Geneva. He then chose an industrial PhD and was working in cellular signalling (protein tyrosine phosphatase, PTP), which were at the time promising drug targets for the treatment of type II diabetes. He moved to Norway to perform a postdoc in cellular biology (toxin trafficking) and then shifted his interest to cancer immunology. His first task as a researcher was to establish a T cell receptor (TCR) discovery platform. During this time, he also developed a novel vaccination vector for cancer treatment. In 2015, together with Dr. Inderberg, they established TRU (celltherapy.no) with the objective of delivering molecules to the clinic. It consists of two research platforms, TCR and CAR and an immunomonitoring lab.
Dr Alexander Lee
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK
Dr Alex Lee is the senior sarcoma medical oncologist at The Christie, Manchester, UK and current chair of the Greater Manchester & Oswestry Sarcoma Service. He is also research lead for the Manchester Complex NF1 service, a board member of the British Sarcoma Group and a member of the national PAWS-GIST consortium. Prior to joining The Christie in 2020, Alex underwent his specialist training and PhD studies at The Royal Marsden and Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK. He is an active clinical researcher, serving as a principal investigator across a portfolio of commercial and academic studies, and is a member of CTOS and EORTC-STBSG. His research interests include novel therapeutics, biomarker development and earlier diagnosis in bone and soft tissue sarcomas.
Dr William Cross
Lecturer in Cancer Genetics and Cell Pathology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, UK
Dr William Cross is a Lecturer and Cancer Researcher at the
University of Reading, and an Associate Editor at the Journal of Pathology. He
was previously a Postdoctoral researcher at UCL, the Oxford University Wellcome
Trust Centre for Human Genetics, and he completed his PhD in Cancer Genetics at
Barts Cancer Institute in 2016. He has a masters degree in bioinformatics and
an undergraduate degree in genetics, both awarded at Cardiff University. Will
was also previously employed as a Healthcare Scientist in the UK Genetics
Service, performing diagnostics and minimum residual disease testing for
childhood leukaemia. Will studies rare malignancies but has a focus on
chondrosarcoma. He has published work in several high impact journals and has
extensive experience of computational biology and cancer evolution.
Dr Nezha Benabdallah
Dr. Nezha Benabdallah leads the Chromatin Regulators in Cancer research team at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, University of Edinburgh. Her group studies the molecular mechanisms driving sarcoma with the goal of better understanding how these cancers start and grow, and of developing new biology‑driven therapeutic strategies.
Dr. Benabdallah began her studies in Paris, earning an Engineering Degree from AgroParisTech followed by a Master’s in Genetics. She went on to complete her PhD at the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, where she explored fundamental mechanisms of gene regulation. She continued this research as a postdoctoral scientist at EMBL Heidelberg, before moving into cancer biology with a DKFZ postdoctoral fellowship allowing her to join the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Hopp Children’s Cancer Centre (KiTZ) in Heidelberg. There, she investigated how the main cancer‑causing protein in synovial sarcoma disrupts gene regulation, sparking her deeper interest in how oncogenes alter chromatin and drive sarcoma development.
In 2023, she received the Young Talent Award from the German National Decade Against Cancer and was awarded a Chancellor’s Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, enabling her to establish her independent research laboratory.
Professor Dominique Heymann
University of Nantes, France
Dominique Heymann is a professor of histology and embryology at the University of Nantes, France and heads the corresponding department at the medical school. He is also an honorary professor of bone oncology at the University of Sheffield in the UK.
Until the end of 2016, he directed an INSERM research unit (UMR 957) dedicated to the pathophysiology of bone resorption and the pathogenesis of bone sarcomas. From 2016 to 2020, he directed the Sarcoma Research Unit (European Associated Laboratory of Inserm, the University of Sheffield, and the University of Nantes) in Sheffield.In September 2017, he joined the ICO Integrated Cancer Center in Saint-Herblain (France). There, he heads the biological resource center, the tumor tissue library (ICO), and the "Tumor Heterogeneity and Precision Medicine" laboratory which is associated with the CNRS and the University of Nantes.
He has authored over 330 publications in peer-reviewed journals, primarily in the field of bone and related diseases, specifically bone sarcomas. He has also written over 25 book chapters and three books, including Bone Cancers, published by Elsevier. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Bone Oncology and editor of the European Journal of Pharmacology. He is also involved with several other international journals, including PloS ONE and Bone Report. He is a nominated member of the Early Stage Investigator Committee of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). In 2006, he received the "Paul Mathieu" Prize from the National Academy of Medicine. In 2017, he received the European Oswald Vander Veken Prize from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS (F.R.S.-FNRS).
Dr Ute Jungwirth
Newcastle University
Dr Ute Jungwirth is a Senior Lecturer in Cancer Drug Discovery at Newcastle University and a member of the Cancer Research UK Newcastle Drug Discovery Group. She has extensive expertise in translational cancer research, target identification, and target validation. In her role, she leads multiple drug discovery projects in collaboration with academic and industry partners. Her particular areas of expertise include drug mechanism of action, resistance biology and in vitro and in vivo model systems.
Dr Jungwirth completed her academic training in Austria. She holds a Master’s degree in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) from the University of Vienna, a Master’s degree in Toxicology, and a PhD in Malignant Diseases from the Medical University of Vienna. She continued her research career with a Schrödinger fellowship at the Institute of Cancer Research in London and the Breast Cancer Now Research Centre, where she investigated the role of the tumour microenvironment in tumour progression and therapy response. She subsequently moved to the University of Bath, where she established her own research group, continuing her work on how therapeutics impact the tumour microenvironment and vice versa. She later joined the Newcastle Drug Discovery Group to advance translational research projects.
Dr Abdullah Khan
Dr Abdullah Khan (Abs), is a Radcliffe Department of Medicine Principal Investigator, currently based at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford. Abs’ primary research interest is in engineering and applying multi-lineage, 3D models for the study of human diseases. Abs completed his PhD at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Birmingham, during which he established a method for the generation of CRISPR-edited megakaryocytes (platelet-producing cells) from human induced pluripotent cells (iPSCs). Alongside this, he also developed a CRISPR-based approach to express photo-switchable tags in iPSCs and their progeny, enabling single molecule imaging.
After completing his PhD in 2019, he was awarded a prestigious Sir Henry Wellcome fellowship for his current work, developing a human iPSC-derived bone marrow organoid model. This work was recently published in Cancer Discovery, and has been positively received by the field leading to numerous collaborations and enquiries from academia and industry. This platform provides the first bone marrow organoid that maintains architectural and cellular features of native human myelopoietic bone marrow, creating a much-needed platform for drug discovery and disease modelling. His research has also included work investigating the role of pericytes in the endotheliitis that occurs after severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the development of a vascularised cardiac microtissue system for the study of remodelling in the heart.
Abs’ current research focusses on applying these human model systems as pre-clinical models in the context of haematological malignancies and cardiovascular disease.
Outside of research, Abs is overly fond of reading, music, eating, and dangling from rock faces by his finger-tips questioning all his life choices.