#KSSResearch
Invited Speakers
Each year we hold a fantastic line-up of invited speakers who talk on a variety of current hot topics within our field.
Our speakers for the 2022 Symposium are confirmed below
MR SACHEEN KUMAR PhD MRSC FRCS
CHAIR'S INVITED SPEAKER 2022
Consultant Oesophagogastric Surgeon
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Mr Kumar is a Consultant Upper Gastrointestinal (GI) Surgeon specialising in the treatment of Oesophago-Gastric Cancer and benign Upper GI conditions. He is also Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Division of Surgery at Imperial College London.
Mr Kumar qualified in medicine from Imperial College London and undertook his General Surgical Training within the London Deanery. His specialist Upper GI Surgical training was undertaken at Royal Free London, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and University College London Hospitals. Upon completion of his training, he spent time at the National Cancer Centre (NCC) in Seoul learning minimally invasive surgical techniques for Upper GI cancer.
His postgraduate research was focussed on breath analysis for the early diagnosis of Upper GI cancer. He was awarded his PhD from Imperial College in 2014 and was subsequently appointed to the position of National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Lecturer in Surgery. During his lectureship, he was awarded CRUK postdoctoral funding and supervised several PhD & MSc students. In recognition of his original scientific research, he was elected a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2018.
Furtgher details of Mr Kumar's research works can be found by clicking the button below:
PROF MICHELLE GARRETT PhD
CHAIR'S INVITED SPEAKER 2021
Professor of Cancer Therapeutics
Faculty Director of Medical Sciences
Division of Biosciences, University of Kent
Kent & Medway Medical School
Professor Garrett received her undergraduate degree from the University of Leeds and then joined The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) London, to undertake her PhD research with Alan Hall on the role of the RhoA small GTPase in cancer. After gaining her PhD in 1991, she took up a Lucille Markey International Research Fellowship and moved to the USA to undertake post-doctoral studies with Peter Novick at Yale University School of Medicine on regulation of small GTPases in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
In 1994 she joined Onyx Pharmaceuticals, California, USA, where she went on to become a team leader involved in the development of cancer drugs targeting the cell division cycle, a collaboration with Pfizer. This included the CDK4 inhibitor project, which went onto deliver Ibrance® (Palbociclib) now a registered treatment for breast cancer. She then returned to the ICR in 1999 to take up a team leader position in the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Cancer Therapeutics Unit. Her research there specialised in the discovery and development of novel small molecule cancer therapeutics targeting cell signalling and the cell cycle. Whilst at the ICR, she became a Reader in Cancer Therapeutics and Head of Biology for the CRUK Cancer Therapeutics Unit. In September 2014 Professor Garrett joined the School of Biosciences at the University of Kent and currently has three cancer drugs in the clinic.
