Nick James, MBBS, PhD

About Nick James, MBBS, PhD

Professor James is Consultant in Clinical Oncology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and Professor of Clinical Oncology at the University of Birmingham. Professor James is internationally renowned for his work in Urological Cancer, particularly on the groundbreaking STAMPEDE trial, which has been used to evaluate, to date, 10 different therapies for advanced prostate cancer in more than 10,000 men. He is a regular educational speaker at conferences worldwide, recently including the American Society of Clinical Oncology, European Society of Medical Oncology and European Association of Urologists Annual Meetings. Results from STAMPEDE with both first line docetaxel chemotherapy and abiraterone have shown that big survival gains can be made by using existing treatments in novel settings. These findings have been practice changing worldwide.

In the bladder cancer field he has led a series of trials of chemoradiotherapy culminating in the largest randomised trial in the field, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, with an accompanying editorial describing the study as “landmark” & “practice changing”. The trial demonstrated that low dose synchronous chemotherapy reduced invasive bladder cancer relapse rates by 43%.

Outside the clinical and research spheres, Professor James is a closely engaged with patient education initiatives. This is best exemplified by a series of music concerts, in collaboration with the world-famous saxophonist Courtney Pine, entitled “It’s a Man Thing”. He also co-founded the leading website CancerHelp UK in 1994. In 2002 it became the main patient resource on the Cancer Research UK website.