Professor Ruth Plummer

Professor Ruth Plummer, based at Newcastle University, is leading exciting clinical trials to test new cancer drugs in patients for the first time. The drugs target molecules which are known to be essential for some tumour cells. In lab experiments, using drugs to block these molecules successfully killed tumour cells.

Professor Plummer is running early clinical trials to test the drugs in people, and her main aim is to find out what dose of the drugs is safe and how well they are tolerated by patients’ bodies. Her team is also checking that the drugs work the same way inside the body as they did in the lab.

Research like Professor Plummer’s is really important for helping to translate the drug discovery research our scientists are doing in the lab into real patient benefit. Finding new, more efficient cancer treatments will be crucial to boosting the number of people surviving the disease.

You can find out more about some of Professor Plummer's work here.