Rate My Professor Elinor Sawyer

Professor Elinor Sawyer is Professor of Breast Cancer Molecular Genetics in the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King's College London. She is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, where she has been employed since 2005, specialising in the treatment of breast cancer through radiotherapy and systemic therapy, with particular expertise in ER-positive breast cancer, lobular breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS), and phyllodes tumours. Sawyer leads the Breast Cancer Genetics Research Group at King's College London and the breast cancer radiotherapy development group at Guy's Hospital. She studied medicine at University College London, obtaining her MBBS in 1991, followed by Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) in 1994 and Fellowship of the Royal College of Radiologists (FRCR) in 1997. She completed her PhD in molecular genetics at the University of London in 2003, having trained in oncology at the Middlesex, Royal Free, and St Thomas’ Hospitals, and as a clinician scientist at the London Research Institute, Cancer Research UK.

Sawyer's research interests centre on genetic predisposition to breast cancer, particularly invasive lobular breast cancer and in situ breast cancers such as DCIS and LCIS, as well as the identification of biomarkers that predict progression to invasive disease. She is involved in the Spatial Biology Network, a cross-faculty group exploring spatial biology in cancer, and contributes to the PRECISION project, focusing on molecular analyses of UK DCIS samples for clinical application. She participates in several breast cancer clinical trials and serves as Breast Clinical Oncologist Biobank Clinical Lead. Her contributions to the field are evidenced by 384 publications on ResearchGate, with over 22,000 citations, and major awards including the Young Investigator Award from the British Oncology Association in 2001 and election to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 2018. Sawyer has significantly influenced breast cancer genetics and personalised therapies.