Professor Gareth Thomas, a Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellow, has been offered the Chair of Experimental Pathology at Southampton Medical School and plans to take up the position in May.
The move will give Professor Thomas the opportunity to develop the clinical and laboratory-based research into head and neck cancer in the South of England. Setting up and developing the new research group will be a significant but exciting challenge, helped by Gareth’s research team joining him in the move.
Gareth is currently Professor of Oral Pathology and consultant in oral and maxillofacial pathology at Bart's and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. He was awarded a Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellowship in 2004. Since that time his research group have published a number of articles in leading cancer journals, and also won several national and International research prizes. He has lectured in the UK, Europe and the USA and last year won the International Association of Oral Pathologists’ Rod Cawson Prize Lecture award.
Gareth said ‘I'd like to thank the Health Foundation for its support – this great opportunity comes as a direct result of your Fellowship, and the continuing research it has supported.
Professor Martin Marshall, Director of Clinical Quality at the Foundation, said ‘I am so pleased for Gareth and would like to congratulate him on behalf of the Health Foundation. Our Clinician Scientist Fellowship scheme aims to develop the very best clinical academics, not only as internationally renowned researchers but also as effective professional leaders. Gareth is an example of both and we wish him the very best for the future.’