Trials and tribulations of cytotoxic and targeted breast cancer therapy: a clinical perspective on the next phase of progress

Chris Twelves is a medical oncologist and leads the Section of Oncology and Clinical Research at Cancer Research UK's Clinical Centre at St James's Hospital, Leeds. His particular interest lies in new drug development and clinical pharmacology; his clinical practice to date has been in the field of colorectal and breast cancer. After training in London he was Senior Lecturer, then Reader, in Medical Oncology in Glasgow at the Beatson Oncology Centre before taking up his current post as Professor of Clinical Cancer Pharmacology and Oncology at the University of Leeds and St James's Institute of Oncology. In this role, Twelves leads his team to perform hypothesis-driven studies, prioritizing therapeutics developed locally or through the Cancer Research UK New Agents Committee, of which he has been a member. Twelves also heads the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre in Leeds; previously he was Chair of the New Drug Development Group of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer. He has published over 150 papers, in addition to several books, and recently presented his group's findings from a Phase III study into the breast cancer drug eribulin.