Meet the team

Robert Rintoul is Professor of Thoracic Oncology in the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician, Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge.

Professor Rintoul is the Chief Investigator of Mesobank, which he founded in 2012, with foundation funding support from the Mick Knighton Mesothelioma Research Fund and the British Lung Foundation.

He trained in respiratory medicine in London and Edinburgh receiving his doctorate from the University of Edinburgh for work investigating mechanisms underlying resistance to chemotherapy in small cell lung cancer.  Professor Rintoul is lead clinician for cancer at Royal Papworth Hospital and Director of the Papworth Trials Unit Collaboration.  He is co-lead for the CRUK Cambridge Centre Thoracic Cancer Programme and co-ordinates thoracic oncology research across Cambridge.  He is the current chair of the Clinical Advisory Group for the UK Lung Cancer Coalition.

Beyond Mesobank, Professor Rintoul’s research is focused around clinical trials and translational research in malignant mesothelioma and the early detection of lung cancer.  He is Chief Investigator for several clinical translational studies examining biomarkers in lung cancer.  His work is funded by the Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, National Institute for Health Research and the British Lung Foundation.

Websites
https://crukcambridgecentre.org.uk/users/robertrintoul
https://royalpapworth.nhs.uk/consultant-profiles/dr-robert-rintoul

Stefan studied medicine at the University of Cambridge as a member of the Cambridge MB/PhD programme. After junior medical posts in London, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, he moved to New York to work as a post-doctoral researcher at NYU for three years. On returning to the UK in 2005, he completed his training in respiratory medicine and in 2008 became an honorary respiratory consultant in Cambridge, while establishing a research group in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR). This is when he established the Cambridge Pneumothorax Clinic to improve care and facilitate research of disorders associated with pneumothorax. In 2016 he became Professor of Respiratory Science in the University of Cambridge

Other roles:

• National lead for familial pneumothorax for the 100,000 Genomes Project
• Lead for the NHS Rare Disease Collaborative Network (RDCN) in familial pneumothorax
• Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge

Papers (mesothelioma-focused selection from 110)

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-021-01462-2
2. https://thorax.bmj.com/content/76/11/1154.long
3. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202003793
4. https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-020-02487-6
5. https://thorax.bmj.com/content/71/4/380.long
6. https://www.nature.com/articles/bjc201366

My websites

CIMR: https://www.cimr.cam.ac.uk/staff/professor-stefan-marciniak
Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge: http://www.med.cam.ac.uk/marciniak/

Sally has a MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and started her career working for the Public Health Laboratory Service on gastrointestinal diseases, where she was responsible for providing scientific and logistical support for investigations into national outbreaks of foodborne disease, and providing information on the epidemiology of gastrointestinal disease to government agencies, local/regional health protection practitioners, university researchers and commercial organisations.

Sally joined the Papworth Research and Development Department in July 2012 and has worked in a number of different research roles.  She became a Clinical Project Manager in June 2017 and is responsible for the operational management of Mesobank and the BLF Mesothelioma Grant which supports the funding of mesothelioma studies.

Holly has worked within the medical sector for approximately 10 years with most of her background experience working with sample types in Pathology and research.  Holly supports the day to day coordination of Mesobank and is the data manager for the workstream responsible for creating a bespoke retrospective Mesobank cohort of matched BAPE/MPM biopsies for PREDICT-Meso; a study which is aiming to understand some of the earliest signals which initiate the development of mesothelioma.

Anna is a Consultant Histopathologist at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge. She studied medicine at the University of Cambridge as part of the MB/PhD programme, undertaking a PhD with Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald exploring predictive and prognostic biomarkers in oesophageal carcinogenesis. She completed her Histopathology training at Addenbrookes Hospital and Royal Papworth Hospital.

Dr Niki Veale, Clinical Research Fellow. As part of his PhD studies, Dr Veale who is a Victor Dahdaleh Foundation Mesobank Fellow, will use transcriptomic, genomic and functional datasets from mesothelioma cell models to better understand the interactions between tumour stroma and mesothelioma cells.

Dr Jose Antonio Valer joined the Mesobank and the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research to study patient-derived primary pleural mesothelioma cell lines and novel mesothelioma organoid models. In this project, he expects to identify genomic and transcriptomic alterations that could highlight novel tumour drivers as well as to integrate complementary multi-omics data to identify genomic and transcriptomic biomarkers of drug resistance and sensitivity. These findings will provide relevant mesothelioma research models and unveil new biomarkers, advancing towards precision cancer medicine in pleural mesothelioma.

Jacky Cai is a first year PhD student who joined Mesobank and the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research in the Autumn of 2025. He plans to use 2D primary pleural mesothelioma cell lines, as well as 3D pleural mesothelioma organoid models to validate candidate genes identified from transcriptomic and genomic datasets.