ProfessorJustin Stebbing

Justin Stebbing, Visiting Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology, specialises in a broad range of malignancies, with a focus on immunotherapy and clinical trials for breast, gastrointestinal, and lung cancers. He began his medical studies at Trinity College, Oxford, earning a first-class degree, and continued his training at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US, before returning to the UK to work at The Royal Marsden and St Bartholomew's Hospitals. His early research during a PhD fellowship, funded by the MRC, examined the interplay between the immune system and cancer, particularly the contribution of viruses and immunity to cancer progression and eradication.

He was appointed Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London in 2007, and Professor of Cancer Medicine in 2009. In March 2022, he transitioned to a Visiting Professor role while maintaining an active translational research program at Imperial. He is currently Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU).

Professor Stebbing has published over 650 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals such as The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Blood, and Annals of Internal Medicine. More than 50 of these papers appeared in journals with an impact factor exceeding 10, and he frequently publishes as first or last author. His research at Imperial focuses on new therapies in cancer and the systemic management of patients with solid malignancies, including biomarker-driven approaches using circulating tumour cells and cell-free DNA. His laboratory concentrates on gene regulation and drug development, particularly targeting kinases and the role of non-coding RNAs such as miRNAs and lncRNAs. A major part of his work is supported by the charity Action Against Cancer, with the ambitious goal of developing curative therapies.

His landmark discoveries include identifying the LMTK3 gene, implicated in various solid tumours, and advancing a drug development program targeting this kinase. His recent high-impact publications include work in Nature Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Science Advances, exploring tumour biology, gene regulation, and novel cancer therapies.

Justin is a Fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists, and he sits on numerous international cancer advisory boards. He chaired the World Vaccine Congress and the Irish Cancer Society oversight committee. He was awarded the NIHR's first translational research professorship in oncology, aiming to bridge the gap between lab discoveries and personalised cancer therapies. He was awarded the Silvia Lawler prize in 2015.
As Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene and an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, his contributions to translational cancer research are internationally recognised.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Stebbing played a key role in international research collaborations. His work led to the discovery of the antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties of baricitinib, which was granted FDA approval in record time. His Lancet publications on using AI to repurpose baricitinib for COVID-19 treatment have been cited thousands of times, and the drug has demonstrated the greatest mortality benefit in hospitalised patients with COVID-19. His recent book, Witness to Covid, documents this discovery process.

Professor Stebbing continues to lead groundbreaking research at the interface of cancer biology and clinical application, including recent first-in-human trials using invariant natural killer cells for cell therapy in critically ill patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, published in Nature Communications. He helped lead a new Nature Medicine study showing that a novel immunotherapy combination can induce durable responses in heavily pre-treated colon cancer, marking the first consistent success of immunotherapy in a cold tumour type.