Rate My Professor Susan Short

Professor Susan Short is the Professor of Clinical Oncology and Neuro-Oncology in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds, where she serves as Section Head of Brain Cancer Research in the Leeds Institute of Cancer and Pathology. She holds qualifications including MBBS and BSc from the University of London (King’s College London), MRCP, FRCR, and PhD. Trained initially at King’s College London, her career trajectory includes serving as Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Clinical Oncology at University College London from 2004, during which she led a translational research group supported by Cancer Research UK as a Clinician Scientist and Senior Clinical Research Fellow. Prior roles encompass Academic Visitor at the Gurdon Laboratory, University of Cambridge, as a CRUK Clinician Scientist, and CRC Research Fellow at the Gray Laboratory. She joined the University of Leeds in 2012 and is also a Cancer Research UK Senior Clinical Research Fellow and Honorary Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Additionally, she co-directs the Leeds Cancer Research Centre.

Professor Short's research specializes in the treatment of adult brain tumours, with a focus on optimizing radiotherapy for patients with gliomas, elucidating mechanisms of radioresistance particularly in stem cell populations, and exploring micro-RNAs as biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Her laboratory investigations cover novel and repurposed drugs as glioma cytotoxics, tumour vasculature and migration, stem cell biology, glioma genomics, and immunology. She leads a portfolio of clinical studies, including early-phase trials on oncolytic viruses as immune adjuvants and inhibitors of DNA repair and autophagy to enhance radiation and chemotherapy efficacy. Notable publications include co-authoring the EANO guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of diffuse gliomas of adulthood (Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 2021), the SNO/EANO consensus review on glioblastoma management (Neuro-Oncology, 2020), and studies on low-dose hypersensitivity (International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics, 2001) and glioma molecular trajectories (Nature, 2019). She has chaired the NCRI Brain Tumour Clinical Study Group, NCRI CTRad pre-clinical workstream, and BNOS Clinical Committee, and currently leads the international BRAIN-LBC consortium on glioma liquid biomarkers. Other roles include council membership in the British Neuro-Oncology Society, chairing Work Stream 1 of the Translational Radiotherapy Research Group, and trusteeship of the Cyclotron Trust.