Core Programme Team

Programme Director: Lesley Stark

Research focus: Nucleolar signaling and cancer prevention

Bio: Lesley received a B.Sc. in Cell Biology from the University of Aberdeen before pursuing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh on the role of papillomavirus in skin cancer. She undertook post-doctoral training with professor Ron Hay at the University of St Andrews, where she became interested the NF-kB pathway. She returned to the University of Edinburgh and began working on the role of NF-kB in aspirin prevention of colorectal cancer with Professor Malcolm Dunlop. This triggered an interest in the role of the nucleolus as a cancer driver, drug target and regulator of stress response. She has been an independent group leader in the Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre since 2005, exploring cross-talk between nucleoli and NF-kB signaling in the regulation of cell homeostasis and cancer initiation. She was promoted to Reader in Cancer Cell Signalling in 2012, became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2014 and a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority in 2020.

Full bio

Deputy Programme Director: Kathryn Ball 

Research focus: Proteostasis and Immune Signalling in Cancer and Dementia 

Bio: Kathryn was always set on a career in science that has taken her from her degree at the University of Salford to a PhD at the University of Leeds, followed by a Brookbank Fellowship at the University of Cambridge. Following post-doctoral studies at the University of Michigan, she was awarded a project grant and then a CRUK Senior Cancer Research Fellowship to establish her own group studying the post-translational regulation of the growth regulator p21WAF1 at Dundee University. In 2004 Kathryn took up a readership at the University of Edinburgh and in 2007 was awarded a personal chair (Biochemistry and Cell Signalling).

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Clinical Oncology Lead: David Cameron 

Research focus: Breast cancer and international clinical trial management 

Bio: Prof. Cameron’s first degree was in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, followed by a medical degree from St. George’s Hospital Medical School, London. After completing a fellowship and MSc in Clinical Oncology at the University of Edinburgh, he received a M.D. with distinction in 1997 and completed his training as a medical oncologist that same year.  

He is currently Professor of Oncology at Edinburgh University and works in NHS Lothian’s cancer centre treating breast cancer patients. David is the joint lead for the Edinburgh Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and is currently also the part/time deputy director role within the Scottish Government funded Innovative Health Care Delivery Programme (IHDP.) He also chairs the Scottish Cancer SACT data group, off label cancer medicines’ group and is Scottish Government R&D (CSO) clinical cancer research champion. 

Internationally he is the chair of the Breast International Group, a Brussels-based umbrella group of 57 worldwide academic/not-for-profit breast cancer trials’ groups, and the vice chair of the steering group of the Oxford-based Early Breast Cancer Clinical Trialists’ Group. He is active in several current and past clinical trials in breast cancer. 

Full bio

Clinical Oncology Lead: Caroline Mitchie 

Research focus: Gynecological cancer-drug development and clinical trials 

Bio: Caroline is consultant in Medical Oncology (breast cancer) at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer & NRS Clinician, at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre & University of Edinburgh.  

  Following completion of a medical oncology specialist training and research programme, Caroline undertook a Senior Clinical Research Fellowship at the renowned Royal Marsden Hospital Drug Development Phase I drug development unit in London.    Caroline has been principal investigator on several breast cancer clinical trials of novel agents and co-investigator on >80 oncology clinical trials. She is the UK Chief Investigator for the DESTINY-breast09 study and since 2020 has been the lead clinician for the Southeast Scotland breast cancer clinical trial team.    Caroline is also the Scotland representative on the Association of Cancer Physicians executive committee, an external advisor for Medical Oncology for the Scottish Academy, and a scientific advisor for the Melville Trust.