Professor Marco Gerlinger
MD, FRCP
Professor of Gastrointestinal Cancer Medicine;
Consultant Medical Oncologist and Director of GI Cancer Research at St. Bartholomew's Hospital
Group Leader
Research Focus
We are investigating how drug resistance evolves in bowel and gastro-oesophageal cancers, how these tumour types can be treated more effectively through novel immunotherapies and targeted drugs, and how treatment sensitivity and resistance can be predicted. Our research insights have already informed several clinical trials that test new therapies in early-stage and metastatic colorectal and gastro-oesophageal cancers.
Key Publications
Extreme intratumour heterogeneity and driver evolution in mismatch repair deficient gastro-oesophageal cancer. Nat Commun (2020) 11(1):139. PMID: 31949146
Immunopeptidomics of colorectal cancer organoids reveals a sparse HLA class I neoantigen landscape and no increase in neoantigens with interferon or MEK-inhibitor treatment. J Immunother Cancer (2019) 7(1):309. PMID: 31735170
Genomic and transcriptomic determinants of therapy resistance and immune landscape evolution during anti-EGFR treatment in colorectal cancer. Cancer Cell (2019) 36(1):35-50.e9. PMID: 31287991
Intratumor heterogeneity and branched evolution revealed by multiregion sequencing. N Engl J Med (2012) 366(10):883-892. PMID: 22397650
Major Funding
- 2019-2024- European Research Council (ERC), Deciphering and predicting the evolution of cancer cell populations, EUR 2 Mio
Other Activities
- Co-organizer of the 2022 American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on Evolutionary Dynamics in Carcinogenesis and Response to Therapeutics
- Member of the AACR Cancer Evolution Working Group
- Member of the scientific committees for the 2022 European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) annual meeting, the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting and the 2022 ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress