Professor Catharine West PhD

Association for Radiation Research
Radiation Research Society (USA)
British Institute of Radiology
British Association for Cancer Research
Royal College of Radiology (Honorary)

NCRI CTRRWG
NCRI Head & Neck Clinical Studies Group
NCRI Translational Clinical Studies Group
LH Gray Cancer Memorial Trust
Cancer Research UK Translational Research in Clinical Trials Committee
Association for Radiation Research Committee
British Institute of Radiology Cancer Biology Committee

The challenge for radiotherapy-related research is to find ways of giving as much radiation as possible to kill cancer cells while minimising the doses received by surrounding healthy tissue. The expansion of our knowledge through the Human Genome Project has been accompanied by the development of new high-throughput techniques, which provide extensive capabilities for the analysis of a large number of genes or the whole genome. There is a belief that this genomic revolution, i.e. sequencing of the human genome and developments in high throughput technology, heralds a future of personalised medicine. For radiotherapy, this progress should increase the possibility of predicting individual patient response to radiotherapy. The Translational Radiobiology Group, therefore, is interested in the characterisation of molecular profiles that reflect relevant biological phenotypes and predict tumour and normal tissue response to radiation.

Catharine West studied biology as an undergraduate at York University and radiobiology as a postgraduate at the Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton.  After postdoctoral work at the University of Rochester Cancer Centre in upstate New York, she moved to the Paterson Institute in 1986. In 2002, she joined the University of Manchester School of Cancer and Enabling Sciences and established the Translational Radiobiology Group. 

She is currently Postgraduate Director for the School of Cancer & Imaging Sciences and is a member of a number of national committees (NCRI Radiotherapy Clinical Studies Group, NCRI Translational Clinical Study Group), Association for Radiation Research, British Institute of Radiology Cancer Biology Committee, and NCRI Head & Neck Clinical Studies Group. She has just completed a period on the grant awarding Cancer Research UK Translational Research in Clinical Trials Committee, is an associate editor for the journal Radiation Research and on the international advisory board of Physics in Medicine & Biology.

She has published over 150 papers, in 2004 was made an honorary member of the Royal College of Radiology and in 2007 became an honorary fellow of the British Institute of Radiology. In 2007 she became Postgraduate Director for the School of Cancer and Enabling Sciences.