Professor Simon Leedham
About
Professor Simon Leedham researches the morphogenic signalling pathways that control the intestinal stem cell in homeostasis, regeneration and cancer, and he has published more than 90 peer reviewed papers in journals that include Nature Medicine, Nature Genetics, Cell Stem Cell, Gastroenterology and Gut.
His work has been recognised by the United European Gastroenterology Rising Star award in 2010, the British Society of Gastroenterology Francis Avery Jones research prize in 2015 and the CRUK future leaders prize in 2017.
In 2012, Professor Leedham obtained an Honorary Consultant Gastroenterologist position in Oxford University Hospitals. He remains clinically active, completing one day of clinical practice a week and has established a gastroenterologist led family cancer clinic and endoscopy screening service in the hospital. He is also leading an Oxford Translational Gastroenterology Unit initiative to be the first unit in the country to offer universal patient consent, tissue and data collection from endoscopy.
Expertise
- Colorectal cancer
- Gastrointestinal disease
- Stem cell biology
- Inflammatory bowel disease
- Colorectal polyps
- Early cancer detection
Selected publications
- Dynamic and adaptive cancer stem cell population admixture in colorectal neoplasia. Cell Stem Cell. 2022 Aug 4;29(8):1213-1228
- Bone Morphogenetic Protein pathway antagonism by Grem1 Regulates Epithelial Cell Fate in Intestinal Regeneration. Gastroenterology. 2021 Apr 2:S0016-5085(21)00579-5. doi: 10.1053
- Exploiting differential Wnt target gene expression to generate a molecular biomarker for colorectal cancer stratification. Gut. 2020, doi 10.1136/gutjnl-2019-319126
- Aberrant epithelial GREM1 expression initiates colonic tumorigenesis from cells outside the stem cell niche. Nature Medicine 2015; 21(1):62-70
- A basal gradient of Wnt and stem-cell number influences regional tumor distribution in human and mouse intestinal tracts. Gut. 2013 Jan;62(1):83-93
- Hereditary mixed polyposis syndrome (HMPS) is caused by a 40-kb upstream duplication that leads to increased and ectopic expression of the BMP antagonist GREM1. Nature Genetics. 2012 May 6;44(6):699-703
- Colorectal adenoma clonality and clonal ordering analysis using genetic markers in individual neoplastic crypts. Gastroenterology, 2010, Apr;138(4):1441-54
- Clonality, founder mutations, and field cancerization in human ulcerative colitis-associated neoplasia. Gastroenterology. 2009 Feb;136(2):542-50
Media experience
Professor Simon Leedham has media experience in broadcast and print, including an interview with a journalist from The Sun following the death of Dame Deborah James about the future of colorectal cancer treatments. In broadcast, he has been interviewed for a local BBC Points West news program about the incidence of bowel cancer in young patients, the Oxford Centre for Personalised Medicine Flash Interview Series and for the BBC website about precision medicine in colorectal cancer.
Recent media work
Languages
English