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Dr Vinton Cheng

Dr Vinton Cheng

  • Position: NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Medical Oncology
  • Areas of expertise: Medical oncology; Brain metastases; Pre-clinical imaging; Pre-metastatic niche
  • Email: V.W.Cheng@leeds.ac.uk
  • Location: Wellcome Trust Brenner Building
  • Website: LinkedIn

Profile

Vinton is an honorary Specialty Registrar in Medical Oncology at the Leeds Cancer Centre and Academic Clinical Lecturer with a research interest in brain metastases. He graduated from Queen Mary, University of London with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 2009, having completed an intercalated BSc in Biomedical Engineering in 2006.

After undertaking an Academic Foundation Programme at the North Western Deanery, Vinton moved to Leeds to begin an Academic Clinical Fellowship during core medical training. Here, he joined the Leeds Brain Tumour Research Laboratory under supervision from Prof Susan Short, investigating glioma cell invasion in 3D spheroid models. Vinton subsequently completed a CRUK/MRC clinical training fellowship between 2015-2018 at the University of Oxford, leading to the award of a DPhil (Oxon). His research has focused on novel imaging of brain metastases using molecularly targeted MRI and pre-clinical mouse models.

Outside of academic medicine, Vinton is co-chair of the UK Breast Cancer Trainees Research Collaborative Group (BCTRCG). He is on the management committee for the PRIMROSE project (CI: Prof C Palmieri, Liverpool), a trainee-led prospective observational study for the management of breast cancer involving the central nervous system (2018-present). Vinton is also a doctor volunteer on the BMA Patient Liaison Group (2017-2020) and trainee member of the NCRI Screening, Prevention and Early Diagnosis (SPED) Advisory Group (2018-present).

Finally, Vinton has a very keen interest in innovation and entrepreneurship, having been a participant in the Merck 350th Innovation Cup (2018) and was a recipient of a University of Oxford IT Innovation Grant (~£32K) for the ConnectOx project (a digital tool to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration) in 2016-17.

Research interests

In his Clinical Lectureship, Vinton will work with Dr Mihaela Lorger to investigate the pre-metastatic niche in the brain, to develop a means of preventing secondary tumours from forming in the brain.

Qualifications

  • BSc (Hons) Biomedical Engineering, Queen Mary, University of London
  • MBBS, Queen Mary, University of London
  • MRCP (London)
  • PGDip, University of Leeds
  • DPhil, University of Oxford

Professional memberships

  • NCRI Screening, Prevention and Early Diagnosis (SPED) Advisory Group
  • BMA Patient Liaison Group

Research groups and institutes

  • Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's
  • Cancer
  • Brain Cancer Research Group