Head & Neck Group

The NCRI Head & Neck Group is a multi-disciplinary community of researchers and consumers focused on clinical and translational issues relating to head and neck cancer research. The group works closely with clinical research networks, funders and national and international researchers to develop research to improve outcomes for head and neck cancer patients and identify areas of unmet need.

The group routinely identifies priorities in head and neck cancer research and dynamic working groups are established to address each priority.

NCRI Head & Neck Group strategic priorities

  • Identify the optimal approach for collaboration between basic scientists, translational scientists, and clinicians to engage and collaborate in future head and neck cancer clinical trials.
  • Identify the gaps in salivary gland cancer research and develop strategic priorities for this area of research.
  • Improve outcomes for patients with locally advanced hypopharyngeal cancer.
  • Identify ways to improve outcomes for elderly and geriatric head and neck cancer patients and provide guidelines on how to achieve this.
  • Identify the barriers resulting in a lack of diversity in clinical trials and propose solutions to improve equality, diversity, and inclusion.

NCRI Head & Neck Group strategic priorities

How can I get involved?

Join the NCRI Head & Neck Network

Group members

Dr Martin Forster

Chair

Dr Martin Forster is an associate professor at UCL and consultant medical oncologist at Universit ...

Dr Martin Forster

Chair

Dr Martin Forster is an associate professor at UCL and consultant medical oncologist at University College Hospital. He specialises in thoracic and head and neck cancers and has a particular interest in drug development and in using the increasing understanding of cancer biology to design studies that distinguish patient populations most likely to gain benefit from new drugs and new drug combinations.

Dr Shreerang Bhide

Deputy Chair

Dr Shreerang Bhide is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist and Honorary Reader at The Royal Marsden H ...

Dr Shreerang Bhide

Deputy Chair

Dr Shreerang Bhide is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist and Honorary Reader at The Royal Marsden Hospital and The Institute of Cancer Research in London and Sutton. He specialises in the treatment of patients with Head and Neck cancers using advanced radiotherapy techniques such as IMRT, IGRT and Adaptive RT.
He leads the research programme investigating the role of circulating HPV DNA in HPV related cancers. On the technical side he leads the MR-Linac implementation for rectal and head and neck cancers at the Royal Marsden Hospital.

His other research interests include investigating the molecular determinants of response to Chemotherapy and radiotherapy, in tumours and normal tissues in head and neck cancer.
In addition he is the co-investigator on several national and international trials investigating state-of-art radiation techniques and novel drug plus radiation combinations including immunotherapy. He has published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and has been awarded competitive research fellowships as well as international prizes for his research.

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