Peter Selby's Biography

Peter Selby, Professor of Cancer Medicine, Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine

Peter Selby is a consultant physician at St James’s University Hospital, the St James’s Institute of Oncology and Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University of Leeds. He has worked in cancer research and cancer care since 1976. After completing a Natural Sciences degree at the University of Cambridge in 1971, he undertook undergraduate medical training at King’s College Hospital in London and then medical and oncological training posts in Kings College Hospital, University College Hospital and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and in the Princess Margaret Hospital and Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. He was a clinical research fellow at the Institute for Cancer Research and Royal Marsden and became a Consultant and Senior Lecturer there in 1984.

His early clinical research work was initially in haematological malignancies, stem cell biology, bone marrow transplantation and antiviral therapy and included the introduction of acyclovir into clinical practice. He now works mainly with patients with urological cancers. His current research programmes are in biotherapy and in clinical cancer proteomics identifying novel biomarkers and new targets for cancer therapy. He recently completed a long term research programme in psychosocial oncology and was made a life member of the British Psychosocial Oncology Society in 2004.

From 1993 to 2000 he was Consultant Advisor to the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Kenneth Calman, on cancer services in England and Wales and undertook the evidence analysis that supported the Expert Advisory Group (Calman/Hine) report on cancer care which developed proposals for specialised multidisciplinary care in Cancer Centres, Cancer Units and Cancer Networks. In 2000 Professor Selby was appointed as Director of the National Cancer Research Network (NCRN), which was charged with providing a world class clinical infrastructure, established Cancer Research Networks and was successful in increasing the clinical trials activity in the UK in cancer four-fold and providing a model which substantially influenced developments for other aspects of health care in the UK and in many other countries across the world. In 2005 – 2010 he was Joint Director of the UK Clinical Research Network, responsible for overseeing the support of clinical trials within the NHS across all of healthcare.

His other clinical service interests include the development of cancer services for teenagers and young adults with cancer (Cancer and the adolescent. Selby and Bailey. BMJ Books, London 1996), cancer occurring in elderly and very elderly people (Cancer in old age - is it adequately investigated and treated? BMJ 1999) and difficulties faced by cancer patients from minority ethnic groups (Cancer and Minority Ethnic Groups. British Journal of Cancer 1996).

He was appointed Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998, and awarded a CBE in 2001 for services to cancer research and cancer care. In 2011 he was awarded a DSc. In 2007 Peter became President of the Association of Cancer Physicians and also won the Pfizer Excellence in Oncology Lifetime Achievement award. In 2010 he was appointed a Senior Investigator of the National Institute for Health Research.

Peter has been Director of the Leeds Biomedical and Health Research Centre since 2008 which links basic science with translational and clinical research in Leeds and Director of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine (LIMM) since 2010.