Professor Amanda Cross

Professor Cross is a Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the St Mary’s Hospital Campus of the Faculty of Medicine within Imperial College London. In 2015, she became the Assistant Head of the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group (CSPRG) and in August 2018 became the Head of the CSPRG following Wendy’s retirement. She is also the Information Governance Lead for the CSPRG, and so has responsibilities for ensuring that information held by the CSPRG for the purposes of its research is used appropriately and that the necessary safeguards are in place. Professor Cross completed her PhD at Cambridge University and then spent 11 years within the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States. During her time as an investigator at NCI, she was also a mentor for the Yale University– NCI Partnership Training Program and held the position of Assistant Professor Adjunct within the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. In the United States, Professor Cross was one of the Principal Investigators of the Polyp Prevention Trial and the CONCeRN study, both colonoscopy screening studies, and she was also one of the Principal Investigators of the U.S. Polyp Pooling Project.

• NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence;
• DCEG Fellowship Achievement Award for Outstanding Accomplishments;
• DCEG Award for Outstanding Research Paper;
• NCI Mentor of Merit Award;
• NIH Merit Award for Leadership of an Innovative Multidisciplinary Research Program.

Imperial College London profile for Professor Amanda Cross.

Professor Wendy Atkin

Professor Wendy Atkin (1947-2018) moved to the St Mary’s Hospital Campus at Imperial College in 2008 to establish the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group (CSPRG). She headed the CSPRG until mid-2018.

• Fellowship of The Academy of Medical Sciences, The Academy of Medical Sciences, 2015;
• Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) – awarded for services to Bowel Cancer Prevention, 2013;
• Bengt Ihre Medal, The Swedish Society of Medicine, 2012;
• BSG President’s Medal (2011), British Society of Gastroenterologists, 2011;

• Imperial College London –  Professor Wendy Atkin OBE 1947-2018
• The Lancet – Obituary: Wendy Shelia Atkin
• The Guardian – Wendy Atkin obituary: Epidemiologist whose research led to a breakthrough in bowel cancer screening programmes worldwide
• Daily Telegraph- Wendy Atkin, epidemiologist who improved testing for bowel cancer 
• The Times – Professor Wendy Atkin: Epidemiologist who loved listening to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and established groundbreaking tests for bowel cancer
• British Medical Journal – Wendy Atkin: epidemiologist who made an enormous contribution to bowel cancer prevention

 

Gwen A. Murphy, PhD, MPH

Dr Gwen Murphy is a Senior Research Fellow in the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group (CSPRG). Dr Murphy earned a PhD in Clinical Medicine from Trinity College Dublin, and a Masters in Public Health from University College Dublin before joining the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) within the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). During her 13 years at the National Cancer Institute Dr Murphy worked to initiate the NCI International EBV-Gastric Cancer Consortium, was a founding member of the African Esophageal Cancer Consortium (AfrECC), coordinated a number of large international field studies of upper gastrointestinal cancers (China, Iran, Kenya, Brazil) and was a Steering Committee member for the Polyp Prevention Trial. Her research programme is focused on understanding the molecular epidemiology of gastrointestinal cancer to enhance cancer screening.

Awards:

• Sarah Purser Medical Research Scholarship
• NCI Cancer Prevention Research Training Merit Award
• NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence
• DCEG Intramural Research Award
• Outstanding Research Paper by a DCEG Fellow
• NIH Earl Stadtman candidate
• NIH Royalty Funds Recipient
• NCI Staff Scientist & Staff Clinician Outstanding Mentor Award

Dr Rhea Harewood

Rhea is a cancer epidemiologist and a NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre-funded Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group. Her research interests lie in using observational and molecular epidemiological approaches to investigate the aetiology of colorectal cancer to inform prevention and early detection strategies. Prior to this role, Rhea completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Metabolic Epidemiology Team at the International Agency for Research in Cancer in Lyon, France. Rhea spent several years as a researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine investigating drivers of inequality in cancer survival between countries and ethnic groups. She has also worked in cancer surveillance in the Caribbean as well as for the World Health Organisation and Johns Hopkins University.

Rhea has a PhD in Epidemiology from Imperial College London, an MSc in Public Health from LSHTM and a BSc in Chemistry from the University of the West Indies. Rhea is an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and has extensive postgraduate teaching experience, both face to face and via distance learning.

Katherine Wooldrage

Kate is an experienced medical statistician who has worked with the CSPRG for many years, in particular on the UKFSST, SIGGAR and IA studies. As our senior statistician, Kate leads on the statistical analysis on many of our trials, and provides significant input to the design of future studies. Her role also involves preparing data for analysis, performing statistical analyses and preparing the results for publication, as well as contributing to the writing up of manuscripts and the management of the group’s studies and trials.

Mariano Kälfors

Mariano is an experienced project manager who joined the CSPRG in 2020. His role is to monitor project progress in the CSPRG research portfolio and ensure that projects are delivered on time and to budget.

Before joining the CSPRG Mariano was a Programme Manager with the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI), overseeing its Living With and Beyond Cancer (LWBC) research initiative. Prior to NCRI, Mariano was with the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) as Project Manager for its research programme on diet, nutrition, physical activity and cancer prevention and survivorship. Mariano also has many years of experience in charity communications and project management.

Kevin Pack

After 15 years working in laboratories on the molecular genetics of bowel cancer including occasional scientific projects for Professor Wendy Atkin, Kevin took on his current role within CSPRG. He has been involved in administration, data collection, coding and data cleaning for several studies, liaising with individuals from various disciplines in dozens of hospitals. Kevin’s projects have included UKFSST, SIGGAR, the Intermediate Adenoma study, SOCCER, FIT for Follow-Up and is currently cleaning data collected from patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

Gemma Mortell

Gemma is a PhD student in the Department of Surgery and Cancer within the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London. Gemma’s research focuses on investigating the role of inflammation in colorectal cancer, to gain a better understanding of the burden of disease.

Prior to starting her PhD, Gemma joined the CSPRG in 2021 working as Junior Epidemiologist. Here she gained experience working across multiple studies, including work on the FIT for follow-up study. Before joining the group, she completed an MSc. in Global Health and Development from University College London (UCL), and graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a B.A. in Immunology, where she focused on cancer immunology in her final year.

Sharon Power

Sharon is a PhD student in the Department of Surgery and Cancer within the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the optimisation of colorectal cancer screening and prevention by using large datasets to identify factors which put people at increased risk of colorectal cancer. Sharon’s PhD aims to examine factors affecting screening performance and will also examine medications and colorectal cancer risk. Prior to starting her PhD Sharon completed an MSc in psychological research methods at the University of Exeter, which involved working on a project to assess the diagnostic accuracy of brief cognitive assessments.

Emma Robbins

Emma is a PhD student in the Department of Surgery and Cancer. Her research focuses on the optimisation of surveillance strategies for patients at higher risk of colorectal cancer, including those with a history of colorectal polyps or Lynch Syndrome. Before starting her PhD in 2021, Emma worked as a Research Assistant in the CSPRG for four years, gaining experience with nearly all of the CSPRG’s studies. Before this, Emma studied Biological Natural Sciences at Cambridge University before completing a MSc in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Paul Greliak

Paul is an experienced clinical trial manager who re-joined the CSPRG after previously working on cancer trials at the Cancer Research UK Imperial Centre: Clinical Trials Section at Hammersmith Hospital. In addition to working on CTIMPs Paul has also worked as a trial manager for the POPPY HIV study, based at the Imperial Clinical Trials Unit (ICTU) at Stadium House.

Prior to joining the CCTS team in 2016 Paul worked as a clinical trials manager at the CSPRG and he has over 10 years of experience working in the field of cancer, having previously also worked at the Thames Cancer Registry, Kings College London, before joining Imperial College in 2010.

Salman Shahrezaei

Salman is a Data Analyst and Developer specialist who joined the CSPRG in August 2020. He is responsible for managing the CSPRG study databases, collecting clinical data and providing day-to-day technical support for the group. This includes systems administration and security; liaising with data providers to gather clinical data; designing patient management systems and other data-processing applications; and maintaining compliance with CSPRG Information Governance policies. Salman also supports the CSPRG statisticians to provide them with the data they need.

Salman has worked as a systems analyst and developer for an internationally recognised commercial company for more than 15 years and has a vast experience of delivering Oracle-based solutions, optimising design, analysis, data management and reporting. He completed an MSc in Software Engineering at Kingston University, London.

Amy Gowenlock

Amy joined as a Clinical Trial Coordinator in 2024. Her role is to manage the administrative aspects of clinical trials and she also organises the group’s Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement work.

Before joining the CSPRG, Amy worked as a Physician Associate in A&E for 3 years and holds a BSc in Biomedical Science from the University of York.

Heather Cooke

Heather is a Research Assistant/Junior Epidemiologist in the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group. She has previous experience as a Research Assistant in the Bioinformatics and Epidemiology Group at Brunel University. Between her undergraduate in Biomedical Science and joining the CSPRG, Heather worked as a Data Analyst while completing an MSc in Data Science and Analytics.

Will Kay

Will is a Research Support Officer, who joined the CSPRG in 2021. His role is to provide support to the whole team to ensure that the CSPRG’s projects run smoothly.

Before joining the CSPRG, Will worked in various research administration roles at the University of Westminster and the University of Melbourne.