Professor Julia Newton-Bishop
- Position: Professor of Dermatology
- Areas of expertise: Melanoma research; Susceptibility to melanoma; factors moderating melanoma survival
- Email: J.A.Newton-Bishop@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 206 4573
- Location: Room 6.4 Clinical Sciences Building, St James's Hospital
- Website: www.genomel.org
Profile
I trained in general medicine on the London Hospital Medical Rotation and then in dermatology in London, at St Thomas's Hospital and the St Johns Institute of Dermatology. I completed my thesis in the Richard Dimbleby Department of Cancer Research and was then appointed as Senior Lecturer (Honorary Consultant) at the Royal London Hospital in 1989. In the following 6 years I carried out a case-control study of melanoma which described phenotypes associated with melanoma risk, and we started to recruit families with multiple cases of melanoma, to a programme of research designed to understand the causes of familial melanoma.
In 1995 I moved to Leeds. Since then I have worked with Professor Tim Bishop and a group of experienced technicians and statisticians and the group is now formally part of the Immunology subgroup of the Institute of Medical Research at St James's. The research funding has been primarily from ICRF and then Cancer Research UK, as consecutive programme grants. We have benefitted however from three consecutive collaborative NIH R01s, a MRC project grant, a large Network of Excellence grant from the EU under Framework 6, and smaller grants from charities such as Melanoma Focus, the Skin Diseases Research Fund and the AICR. In 2000 we broadened the research aims to ask what inherited, somatic tumour events and exposures moderate melanoma survival. We have built very large cohorts in order to address these aims.
I played a key role in establishing UK and European Clinical Guidelines, and have been involved in other UK committees designed to inform management. 2004-2005 I was a member of the NICE Skin Cancer Guideline Committee, 2012-2015 I was the clinical chair for the NICE Melanoma Clinical Guideline. I was chairman of the NCIN Skin Cancer Committee from 2009-2014 during which we defined the COSD data sets.
In 1997 I instigated and have since then been chairman of the international melanoma genetics consortium GenoMEL. This consortium has led the way internationally in the identification of common and rare inherited genetic variants associated with melanoma risk. This is important in terms of understanding the biology of melanoma aetiology, giving insight into prevention, and for the rare high penetrance genes the long-term aim is to understand risk and to instruct proper screening programmes.
We are now, in 2022 working with the University of Oxford to build a cohort of at least 20,000 participants who have had melanoma treated by the NHS, in order to build a data resource to be used by international researchers to address the key remaining issues for the prevention and management of melanoma. Particular attention will be paid to the identification of biomarkers and improving the understanding or and management of drug toxicities and the effects of melanoma and its treatment on the quality oflife of affected patients. The project is called MyMelanoma and we hope to start recruiting January 1st 2023.
Responsibilities
- Lead Melanoma Research Group
- Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James’s
Research interests
I lead a research group in the Institute of Medical Research at St James's which is part of the University of Leeds. The research group uses epidemiology and genomics (of the germline and tumour) to understanding susceptibility to melanoma and survival from melanoma.
We have published extensively on high-risk susceptibility genes and more recently on large genome wide association studies designed to identify low to medium penetrance susceptibility genes. I have been Chairman of the international melanoma genetics consortium GenoMEL since 1997. Under my leadership the consortium has successfully obtained funding from the NIH and from the EU under FP6. The EU grant was for 10.5 million euros. This research has produced 4 Nature Genetics papers in the last 3 years.
Just as susceptibility to cancer is governed by heredity, and the environment, our hypothesis is that the probability of survival for cancer patients is also modified by heredity and the environment as well as variation in the biological characteristics of the tumours themselves. Current research in Leeds is directed toward understanding these modifiers. I have set up a second consortium called BioGenoMEL, and this consortium was created in order to pool data from research groups internationally to generate enough statistical power to identify inherited genetic variation having an effect on melanoma survival. By finding genetic variation which modifies survival expectation, we will identify important biological processes governing host/tumour interaction which may promote the recognition of novel therapies for cancer.
The focus of the research in recent years has shifted to include the aim of understanding environmental factors which modify that interaction between the patient and his/her tumour. In order to do that we have built very large cohort studies: collecting complex data sets on lifestyles, blood samples and tumour samples from melanoma patients. We are grateful to those patients for their time and willingness to donate their samples. The largest study is known as the Leeds Melanoma Cohort in which 2184 patients participated see plain English summary below https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/find-a-clinical-trial/a-study-looking-at-why-melanoma-skin-cancer-comes-back-after-surgery
We have reported evidence that smoking reduces survival in melanoma patients and that this is most marked in patients whose tumours contain a stronger immune reaction: something that usually increases the expectation of survival (Pozniak et al Cancer Research 2019). We first reported evidence that higher vitamin D levels at melanoma diagnosis was associated with thinner tumours and better survival in 2009. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=19770375.
These findings have since been recapitulated in other studies from the USA, Germany and Australia. We continue to work on studies designed to understand the biological processes associated with the association between vitamin D and better melanoma survival.
In 2022 we continue to use genomic data to understand the biological processes underlying tumour progression and the immune responses to melanoma. Paraffin embedded tissue and blood samples have been used to generate unique transcriptomic data allowing bioinformatic interrogation of the nodal genes and signalling pathways.
Grants
Current funding
Title: Genetic Epidemiology of Melanoma
Ref: RO1 CA083115
Dates: 1st January 2014 – 31st March 2019
Co-PI: DTB
Funder: National Institute of Health
Award: $520,000 to University of Leeds
Title: Metformin and survival from melanoma
Dates: 1st February 2015 – 31st January 2019 (extended)
PI: JNB
Funder: Melanoma Focus
Award: £8.7k
Title: Genetic Epidemiology of Melanoma
Ref: RO1 CA083115
Dates: 1st January 2014 – 31st March 2019
Co-PI: DTB
Funder: National Institute of Health
Award: $520,000 to University of Leeds
Title: Using tumour, peripheral blood and sentinel nodal transcriptomics to understand the interaction between melanomas and the host
Ref: MR/M019012/1
Dates: 1st June 2015 – 31st May 2020
PI: JNB
Funder: Medical Research Council
Award: £953,389
Title: MELGEN – Understanding and biomarking the genetic and immunological
determinants of melanoma survival – Marie Curie ETN Training Network
Ref: 641458
Dates: 1st June 2016 – 31st May 2019
PI: JNB
Funder: European Union
Award: £4.0m
Title: The role of genetic susceptibility in melanoma development
Ref: RO1 CA182890-01
Dates: 1st May 2014 – 30th April 2019
Leeds PI: JNB
Funder: National Institute of Health
Award: $280k to Leeds
Title: Genetics of acral melanoma: Newton Senior Fellowship for Dr Daniela Robles
Espinoza (Mexico-UK Award)
Dates: 1st December 2018 - 30th November 2023
PI: Daniela Robles Espinoza (Mexico), DTB Co-PI
Funder: Academy of Medical Sciences
Award: £100k
Qualifications
- MB ChB
- MD
Professional memberships
- FMedSci
Student education
Teaching: post graduate education
Genetics, somatic, germline, melanoma survival, melanoma aetiology, vitamin D
Postgraduate Students
Students since 2013 listed
Anastasia Filia PhD 2009-2013
Sinead Field 2010-2014 MD student
Sally O’Shea PhD 2013-2017
Faheem Latheef MD student 2019
Rohit Thakur PhD 2015-19
Joanna Pozniak PhD 2015-19
Sathya Muralidhar PhD 2015-19
Joey Diaz PhD 2016-19
Emily Clarke – current PhD student
Scott Gregory – current PhD student
Fiona James – current PhD student
Research groups and institutes
- Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's