Adrian Harris, MD, D.Phil

2008-2009 BCRF Project:
Professor Harris and his team at Oxford are investigating mechanisms of resistance to an important new anti-cancer therapy that blocks angiogenesis, Avastin. They are studying this through a clinical trial and preclinical investigations of the main pathways that cause resistance to try and block them and enhance the therapeutic activity of this new modality.

Bio:
Adrian L. Harris, MD, DPhil, is the Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Cancer Research UK Medical Oncology Unit. He is a Consulting Medical Oncologist at the National Health Service, Oxford Radcliffe Hospital Trust. The Trust and the University have now combined resources as a unified Academic Foundation Trust, one of the first in the UK combining the expertise of the University with the patient resources and investigation resources of the Regional Cancer Centre. It is also a comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre designated for extra funding by the British Government for development of translational research programmes. Cancer Research UK has also designated this as an Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre, with rapid access to phase I and phase II drugs for clinical trials. Thus there is a strong emphasis on development of translational research from the laboratory to the clinic.

Professor Harris' research is on tumour angiogenesis and hypoxia as key targets for anti-cancer therapy. From his earliest training, he has been interested in understanding the basic biology and science of disease, how this could be applied to patient benefit, particularly in development of new treatments and selecting the right patients for the right therapies.

He received his Bachelors Degree in Medicine and Surgery in 1973 at Liverpool University, but undertook an intercalated Biochemistry degree (first class honours) in 1969, which first cemented his interest in the applicability of basic science to medicine. He worked with Professor David Weatherall in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, Oxford University, from 1975-1978, where he conducted research on mechanisms of resistance to anti-cancer drugs, particularly by enzyme pathways that could be targeted. He then took up a lectureship at the Royal Marsden Hospital where he conducted several studies in phase I and phase II, but particularly developed an interest in the endocrine therapy of breast cancer with Professor Ian Smith, and helped develop early aromatase inhibitors. This led to a long-term productive collaboration in endocrine biology with Professor Smith and Professor Mitch Dowsett at the same Institute.

In 1981 he was appointed as the Professor of Clinical Oncology at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in a newly founded chair and proceeded to set up a phase I and phase II research department investigating the biology of growth factor receptors in breast cancer, being the first to show the prognostic importance of epidermal growth factor receptor in both hormone sensitive and hormone resistant breast cancer.

In 1988 he was invited to Oxford to take up a new chair in Medical Oncology and lead the Cancer Research UK Molecular Oncology Laboratories at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, one of the leading basic science Institutes in the United Kingdom. He is the Director of the Molecular Oncology Laboratories, which comprises 11 research groups working in the areas of tumour hypoxia and angiogenesis, signal transduction and DNA repair. The emphasis is on investigation of basic mechanisms that are relevant clinically.