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institutionsInstitution
The Royal Marsden
The Royal Marsden was the world's first hospital dedicated to cancer (1851) and is paired with the Institute of Cancer Research.
Overview
The Royal Marsden in London was the world's first hospital dedicated to cancer, opened in 1851, and works as a pair with The Institute of Cancer Research; it ranks seventh in the Newsweek/Statista oncology list. Together they discovered abiraterone and worked out the clinical path for olaparib and PARP inhibition in BRCA-mutated cancers, with Johann de Bono and Andrew Tutt central, and the hospital leads the STAMPEDE prostate platform and breast trials while pioneering MR-linac adaptive radiotherapy. OnCo links it to the KEYNOTE-048 head and neck paper, to prostate, mesothelioma, sarcoma and neuroendocrine tumour pages, and to bottlenecks about surgery and radiotherapy being under-funded relative to drugs. The question it keeps raising is how to fund trials of treatments no company owns. Stephen Johnston and James Larkin are among the people listed here.
Location
London, GB
Type
cancer center
Website
Newsweek 2026 oncology rank
#7
OnCo score
#7 · 149 points (53 Newsweek + 0 NCI + 96 from 48 linked objects) · ranking
Research output
From OpenAlex, oncology works in the last five years (2022 to 2026, current year in progress); counted on 2026-09-24.
Matched to Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, including child institutions. 1,030 works · 18,019 citations · 72% open access · 17% clinical trials · 3% reviews.
Oncology works per year
2312022
2102023
2232024
2142025
1522026
Most works
- James Larkin79 works
- David Cunningham53 works
- Johann Sebastian De Bono49 works
- Ricky Harminder Bhogal43 works
- Kevin Harrington38 works
- Ian Chau36 works
- Susana Banerjee35 works
- Sanjay Popat33 works
- Paolo A. Ascierto32 works
- Georgina Venetia Long31 works
Most cited
- Prostate cancer (abiraterone, PARP)
- MR-linac
- Breast cancer
Andrew Tutt
Director, Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre, ICR; Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Royal Marsden and Guy's
Triple-negative breast cancerBRCA and DNA repairPARP inhibitors
Led OlympiA, the trial that showed a year of olaparib after surgery improves survival in BRCA-mutated breast cancer.
Chris C. Parker
Clinical oncologist, The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research
Prostate radiotherapyRadium-223Post-prostatectomy radiotherapy
London radiation oncologist who led ALSYMPCA, the trial that showed radium-223 lengthens survival in prostate cancer that has spread to bone, and RADICALS-RT, which showed radiotherapy after prostatectomy can safely wait until the PSA rises.
David Cunningham
Consultant Medical Oncologist and Director of Clinical Research, Royal Marsden
Gastrointestinal oncologyOesophago-gastric cancerColorectal cancer
Gastrointestinal oncologist who led landmark trials of perioperative chemotherapy in gastric and oesophageal cancer.
Dearbhaile Collins
Clinical Director of Cancer Services and Consultant Medical Oncologist, Cork University Hospital
Medical oncologyGynaecological cancersThoracic cancers
Medical oncologist who leads cancer services at Cork University Hospital as Clinical Director, with a focus on gynaecological and thoracic cancers and early-phase trials.
Ian Chau
Consultant Medical Oncologist, The Royal Marsden; Professor, The Institute of Cancer Research
Gastrointestinal cancerImmunotherapyClinical trial design
A Royal Marsden gastrointestinal oncologist who has shaped UK colorectal and upper gastrointestinal trials and who works on the blood test for residual disease after bowel surgery.
James Larkin
Consultant Medical Oncologist, Royal Marsden; Professor, ICR
MelanomaRenal cell carcinomaImmunotherapy combinations
Melanoma and kidney cancer trialist who co-led CheckMate 067, the trial with 10-year immunotherapy survival data.
Johann de Bono
Regius Professor of Cancer Research, ICR; Head of Drug Development Unit, Royal Marsden
Prostate cancerEarly drug developmentPARP inhibitors
Johann de Bono led the trials that brought abiraterone and olaparib to prostate cancer patients.
Karl Munslow-Ong
Chief Executive
Hospital managementPaediatric health services
Chief Executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital, the UK's leading children's hospital, since June 2026.
Kevin Harrington
Professor of Biological Cancer Therapies, ICR; Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Royal Marsden
Head and neck cancerOncolytic virusesRadiotherapy-immunotherapy combinations
Kevin Harrington is a head and neck oncologist and oncolytic virus pioneer who led the OPTiM trial of T-VEC.
Mitch Dowsett
Professor of Biochemical Endocrinology, Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden
Endocrine therapy biologyKi67 and biomarkersAromatase inhibitors
The translational scientist behind the aromatase inhibitor era and the Ki67 response test used in POETIC.
Naureen Starling
Consultant Medical Oncologist and Director of the Clinical Trials Unit, The Royal Marsden; Reader, The Institute of Cancer Research
Gastrointestinal cancerCirculating tumour DNAEarly-phase and translational trials
The Royal Marsden oncologist who runs the UK trial testing whether a blood test for leftover tumour DNA can decide who needs chemotherapy after bowel cancer surgery.
Nicholas James
Professor of Prostate and Bladder Cancer Research, ICR; Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Royal Marsden
Prostate cancerBladder cancerMulti-arm platform trials
Nicholas James is chief investigator of STAMPEDE, the platform trial that reshaped treatment of advanced prostate cancer.
Nicholas Turner
Professor of Molecular Oncology, ICR; Consultant Medical Oncologist, Royal Marsden
Breast cancerCirculating tumour DNAEndocrine resistance
Breast cancer researcher who turned ctDNA into a tool for choosing treatment, leading SERENA-6 and CAPItello-291.
Nicholas van As
Medical Director and Consultant Clinical Oncologist, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust; Professor in Precision Prostate Radiotherapy, The Institute of Cancer Research
Stereotactic body radiotherapy for prostate cancerImage-guided radiotherapyRadiotherapy trial design
The Royal Marsden oncologist who ran the trial that cut a four-week course of prostate radiotherapy to five treatments, and published the higher urinary side-effect rate alongside the good news.
Robin L. Jones
Head of the Sarcoma Unit, The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research
Soft tissue sarcomaAngiosarcomaSarcoma drug development
London sarcoma specialist who led TAPPAS, the trial that tested the anti-angiogenic protein TRC105 with pazopanib in angiosarcoma, and who has led many international sarcoma trials.
Rosalind Eeles
Professor of Oncogenetics, The Institute of Cancer Research; Consultant in Clinical Oncology and Cancer Genetics, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Inherited susceptibility to prostate cancerPolygenic risk scoresTargeted screening
The oncogeneticist who found most of the common genetic variants that raise a man's risk of prostate cancer, and whose work is the reason the UK's first prostate screening programme is defined by a gene rather than by an age.
Sanjay Popat
Chief Medical Officer and Consultant Medical Oncologist, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust; Professor of Thoracic Oncology, The Institute of Cancer Research
Thoracic oncologyTargeted therapy in lung cancerClinical trial design
The Royal Marsden thoracic oncologist, now its chief medical officer, who has been an investigator on most of the UK trials that put targeted drugs into lung cancer practice.
Stephen Johnston
Professor of Breast Cancer Medicine, Royal Marsden and Institute of Cancer Research
HR-positive breast cancerAdjuvant CDK4/6 inhibitionEndocrine resistance
Chief investigator of monarchE, the trial that added abemaciclib to adjuvant endocrine therapy for high-risk early breast cancer.
Susana Banerjee
Consultant medical oncologist, The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research
Ovarian cancerLow-grade serous ovarian cancerRare gynaecological cancers
London gynaecological oncologist who led RAMP 201, the trial that established the avutometinib and defactinib combination for recurrent KRAS-mutant low-grade serous ovarian cancer.
Uwe Oelfke
Head of Joint Department of Physics, ICR and Royal Marsden
Radiotherapy physicsMR-guided radiotherapyAdaptive radiotherapy
Uwe Oelfke is the radiotherapy physicist behind the Marsden's pioneering MR-linac programme.
real worldClinical Breast Cancer 20260 citations
The impact of expanded access to germline high penetrance genetic testing for women with a new diagnosis of invasive breast cancer or high-grade DCIS
An argument for universal rather than criteria-based germline testing at diagnosis, with turnaround fast enough to inform surgery; for TNBC patients, who are already eligible, the lesson is timing.
rctAnnals of Oncology 2023166 citations
Results of the c-TRAK TN trial: a clinical trial utilising ctDNA mutation tracking to detect molecular residual disease and trigger intervention in patients with moderate- and high-risk early-stage triple-negative breast cancer
The first prospective test of acting on ctDNA in triple-negative disease, and a negative one: with a quarterly, single-mutation assay the window between detectable DNA and visible metastasis was too short to intervene. Later designs use tumour-informed assays, earlier sampling and drugs with more single-agent activity.
observationalJAMA Oncology 2019340 citations
Assessment of molecular relapse detection in early-stage breast cancer
For TNBC, where brain metastases are common, the blind spot matters: a negative ctDNA test does not exclude intracranial relapse.
rctThe Lancet 2019changed practice2,596 citations
KEYNOTE-048: pembrolizumab, alone or with chemotherapy, as first treatment for recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer
Patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer that has recurred or spread should be treated first with pembrolizumab: alone if their tumour is strongly PD-L1 positive and they can wait for a slower response, or with chemotherapy if the tumour is bulky or PD-L1 low. Cetuximab-based chemotherapy is no longer the default. Long-term follow-up shows a small but real group of patients alive at four to five years, which was almost unheard of before.
rctNew England Journal of Medicine 2017changed practice1,340 citations
STAMPEDE: adding abiraterone to hormone therapy at diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer
Men diagnosed with prostate cancer that has already spread, or that is locally advanced and high risk, should start abiraterone (or another androgen-receptor pathway inhibitor) at the same time as testosterone suppression rather than waiting for resistance. This roughly halves the risk of death over several years. The same platform later showed that docetaxel chemotherapy and, in high-volume metastatic disease, triple therapy also help, and that abiraterone benefits men with high-risk disease treated with radiotherapy.
observationalNew England Journal of Medicine 2016changed practice1,312 citations
Inherited DNA-repair gene mutations in men with metastatic prostate cancer
The evidence that made germline testing standard for every man with metastatic prostate cancer, whatever his family history. It changes his treatment, because PARP inhibitors and platinum work better in these tumours, and it changes his relatives' screening, because BRCA2 carries breast, ovarian and pancreatic risk as well.
translationalScience Translational Medicine 2015923 citations
Mutation tracking in circulating tumor DNA predicts relapse in early breast cancer
The proof-of-principle paper for molecular residual disease in breast cancer, and the origin of the personalised digital PCR approach that c-TRAK TN later tested prospectively in TNBC.
basicCell 2015changed practice2,755 citations
SU2C-PCF: integrative clinical genomics of advanced prostate cancer
The genomic definition of advanced prostate cancer, and the evidence that made molecular testing standard in it. The 19.3 percent DNA repair figure is the direct ancestor of PROfound, TRITON3, PROpel and TALAPRO-2, and the 8 percent germline figure is why a tumour result in this disease has implications for a man's relatives.
Similar pages
- InstitutionThe Christie NHS Foundation Trust
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- IdeaCore-funded radiotherapy trials infrastructure with central quality assurance
Shares Uwe Oelfke, A statutory minimum share of public trial money for surgery and radiotherapy, MR-guided adaptive radiotherapy, The Institute of Cancer Research.
- InstitutionCancer Research UK
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- PersonJean Abraham
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- TermGermline BRCA mutation (gBRCA)
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- InstitutionBreast Cancer Now
Shares TNT (Triple Negative Trial), Andrew Tutt, The Institute of Cancer Research, Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
cancers
technologies
drugs
ApprovedSmall-molecule CYP17A1 inhibitor
Abiraterone acetate · Zytiga (generic)
ApprovedSmall-molecule PARP inhibitor
Olaparib · Lynparza
institutions
trials
roadmaps
ideas
A global first-in-human network for academic cancer trials with single ethics reviewA mandatory trial line in every tumour board recommendationA non-profit phase 1b combination unit that any drug owner can useA permanently funded international network for randomised cancer surgery trialsA statutory minimum share of public trial money for surgery and radiotherapyEvening and weekend trial clinics for working-age patients
people
bottlenecks
key papers
Assessment of molecular relapse detection in early-stage breast cancerInherited DNA-repair gene mutations in men with metastatic prostate cancerKEYNOTE-048: pembrolizumab, alone or with chemotherapy, as first treatment for recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancerMutation tracking in circulating tumor DNA predicts relapse in early breast cancerPhase 1 trial of abiraterone acetate confirms that castration-resistant prostate cancer commonly remains hormone drivenResults of the c-TRAK TN trial: a clinical trial utilising ctDNA mutation tracking to detect molecular residual disease and trigger intervention in patients with moderate- and high-risk early-stage triple-negative breast cancerSTAMPEDE: adding abiraterone to hormone therapy at diagnosis of advanced prostate cancerSU2C-PCF: integrative clinical genomics of advanced prostate cancerThe impact of expanded access to germline high penetrance genetic testing for women with a new diagnosis of invasive breast cancer or high-grade DCISTOPARP-A: DNA-repair defects and olaparib in metastatic prostate cancer