Professor Siow Ming Lee

Prof Siow Ming Lee is Professor of Medical Oncology and Consultant Medical Oncologist at University College London Hospital (UCLH). He is an internationally recognised authority on lung cancer treatment and research.

He has led several National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) lung cancer trials over the past three decades in UK, which have changed clinical practice and improved treatment outcomes for lung cancer patients.

His research team established the use of gemcitabine/carboplatin chemotherapy to treat lung cancer and this treatment remains the standard chemotherapy combination to treat squamous lung cancer. His innovative trials with thalidomide as a cancer weapon and the smart drug erlotinib to treat poor performance lung cancer patients received worldwide publicity including being featured on BBC Ten O'Clock News at launch. His ET trial was the first prospective biomarker chemotherapy trial with ERCC1 to select lung cancer patients for doublet chemotherapy and demonstrated that platinum combination is superior to non-platinum chemotherapy. His latest trials examine the role of atezolizumab immunotherapy to treat poor performance non-small cell lung cancer patients (IPSOS) and hydroxychloroquine to treat small cell lung cancer (Study 15). His team was also part of the international FLAURA and KEYNOTE-189 Investigators that established osimertinib and chemotherapy-pembrolizumab combination as standard first-line therapy to treat EGFR mutant and wild-type lung cancer respectively. His trials have been recognised at major international conferences with many invited Presidential, Plenary and Oral Presentations at World Lung Cancer Conference, ASCO and ESMO and resulted in several 1st or senior author publications in high impact journals. His practice-changing trials and 4* high impact research publications were used for the REF 2014 exercise which ranked UCL top for research in UK.

Professor Lee is the Clinical Lead for the UCLH Thoracic Medical Oncology Unit and chairs the London Lung Cancer Group, which has an international research reputation. He previously was chairperson for the NCRI Lung Cancer Advanced Disease Subgroup, NCRI Brain New-agents Clinical Subgroup and committee member of CTACC, NCRI Lung, NCRI Brain and NCRI Lymphoma Groups.

Diseases, Medical Tests and Treatments

• Targeted therapies and immunotherapy for lung cancer
• Non-small cell lung cancer
• Small lung cell cancer
• Malignant mesothelioma
• Thymic carcinoma
• HIV-related cancers