Prof Stefan Symeonides

Who Prof Stefan Symeonides is

Prof Stefan Symeonides is Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine and a Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, University of Edinburgh, and the linked Edinburgh Cancer Centre (NHS Lothian) and CRUK Scotland Centre. He leads the Edinburgh Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre, bridging pre-clinical discovery and clinical drug development, and runs the Phase I Trials Unit for new cancer treatments. He holds a specialty focus on renal cancers within the Uro-oncology team and is clinical lead for the Edinburgh Cancer Immunology Research Network. After clinical training in Cambridge, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Christchurch, and industry experience at AstraZeneca and various UK biotechs, he also serves as Senior Medical Advisor at Cancer Research UK's Centre for Drug Development and sits on the Board of Directors of the Cancer Drug Development Forum. He is known for leading early-phase immunotherapy combination trials and has argued publicly for reducing regulatory duplication that impedes the running of clinical trials in the UK.

References for this biography

1. 1.Prof Stefan Symeonides – Scottish Cancer Conference speaker profile — Current full title (Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine, Consultant Medical Oncologist), institutional affiliations (UoE, NHS Lothian, CRUK Scotland Centre), CRUK Centre for Drug Development advisory role, and CDDF board membership
2. 2.Stefan Symeonides Research Group – Institute of Genetics and Cancer, University of Edinburgh — Role leading Edinburgh ECMC, Phase I Trials Unit, immunotherapy focus, and CRUK drug development advisory work
3. 3.Kidney cancer drug accepted for use within NHS Scotland and across the UK – IGC, University of Edinburgh — UK Chief Investigator role on KEYNOTE-564 trial; approval of pembrolizumab as first post-nephrectomy adjuvant therapy for renal cell carcinoma (2022)
4. 4.New drug shows efficacy for multiple cancers in breakthrough clinical trial – NIHR Manchester CRF — UK Chief Investigator role on EMITT-1 trial; confirmed current title and employer (2026)
5. 5.The trans-Atlantic quest to find a winning combination of cancer drugs – Cancer Research UK Science Blog — Co-design with Prof Dean Fennell of the first CRUK Alliance two-company combination immunotherapy/targeted therapy trial
6. 6.Stefan Symeonides – University of Edinburgh Research Explorer — ORCID, Personal Chair of Experimental Cancer Medicine, publication record including Nature Medicine 2025
7. 7.Stefan Symeonides – ResearchGate profile — Credentials (MB BChir PhD MA MRCP FRCPE), 144 publications, 3,730 citations as of profile date

Notable achievements

• Served as UK Chief Investigator of the KEYNOTE-564 phase III trial, whose results led to approval of pembrolizumab — the first adjuvant treatment to reduce relapse after kidney cancer surgery — within the UK and NHS Scotland (2022). Source ↗
• Serves as UK Chief Investigator of the EMITT-1 trial of a first-in-class ERAP1 inhibitor (GRWD5769), a novel immunotherapy showing efficacy across multiple advanced solid tumour types including lung, cervical and bladder cancers (results reported 2026). Source ↗
• Co-designed (with Prof Dean Fennell) the first CRUK Alliance trial to bring together two drug companies to test a combination of an immunotherapy and a targeted treatment — the FAK-PD1 trial (defactinib + pembrolizumab, NCT02758587) — running UK-wide across the ECMC network. Source ↗
• Author on a 2025 Nature Medicine publication reporting the first-in-human phase I FRAME trial of avutometinib and defactinib in solid tumours. Source ↗

What Prof Stefan Symeonides has said

• “Patient expressed gratitude to 'Prof Stefan Symeonides and his team in Edinburgh' for the treatment and research”

  Professor in Edinburgh (implied oncology/cancer research based on context) · Cancer · 27 Aug 2026 · ‘I was getting ready to say goodbye’: cancer patient’s hope after smart drug success ↗

Where Prof Stefan Symeonides has been quoted

1. Smart drug that strips cancer cells of ‘invisibility cloak’ can shrink tumours by 30%, trial showstheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
2. ‘I was getting ready to say goodbye’: cancer patient’s hope after smart drug successtheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026

Related media coverage

Recent UK press coverage of their topics — not necessarily citing them directly.

• 'Terminal prostate cancer has taught me one lesson I want to pass on'BBC
• You have a higher chance of getting cancer at a younger age than your parents. So what went wrong? | Devi SridharThe Guardian
• MHRA approves catumaxomab to treat cancer-related fluid build-up in the abdomenGOV.UK

Contact & links

• Staff pagehttps://edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/stefan-symeonides
• Staff pagehttps://institute-genetics-cancer.ed.ac.uk/research/research-groups-a-z/symeonides-group
• ORCIDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9892-9314published here ↗
• LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/stefansymeonidespublished here ↗

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.