Rate My Professor Richard Wilson

Professor Richard Wilson is Professor of Gastro-Intestinal Oncology (Clinical Research Gartnavel) in the School of Cancer Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 1984 and subsequently worked as a junior doctor in surgery in Northern Ireland and Scotland, including three years of colorectal cancer laboratory research at Queen’s University Belfast. He trained in clinical oncology and completed a post-CCT Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in the USA, specialising in medical oncology, phase I cancer trials, and drug development. In 2001, he was appointed Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and Consultant Oncologist at Belfast City Hospital, where he established the first early phase cancer clinical trials programme on the island of Ireland and served as the inaugural Clinical Director of the Northern Ireland Cancer Trials Network. From 2002, he was a member of the Adjuvant and Advanced Disease subgroups and the main Colorectal Cancer Clinical Studies Group of the UK National Cancer Research Institute, chairing the latter from 2014 to 2017. He co-founded and co-chairs the International Rare Cancer Initiative Small Bowel Adenocarcinoma Working Group since 2011 and has been a member of Bowel Cancer UK’s Medical Advisory Board since 2013. In 2019, he joined the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Clinical Sciences as Professor of Gastrointestinal Oncology and serves as Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre.

Professor Wilson’s research focuses on gastrointestinal cancers, particularly colorectal, small bowel, anal, and peritoneal malignancies, with expertise in drug development, biomarkers, personalised medicine, and early and late phase clinical trials. His work integrates cancer biology, translational research, and clinical applications, and he is dedicated to training future cancer clinicians and researchers as the Glasgow lead for the TRACC programme, a Cancer Research UK-funded initiative with the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. He has secured grants from Cancer Research UK, Beatson Cancer Charity, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser. Key publications include ‘MAPK-driven epithelial cell plasticity drives colorectal cancer therapeutic resistance’ (Nature, 2026, with M. White et al.), ‘NEOPRISM-CRC: Neoadjuvant pembrolizumab stratified to tumour mutation burden…’ (ASCO Annual Meeting, 2024, with K.-K. Shiu et al.), and ‘Capecitabine versus active monitoring…FOCUS4-N trial’ (Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2021, with R.A. Adams et al.). His contributions advance clinical trial methodologies and patient outcomes in oncology.