Dr Khurum Khan
Dr Khan is an experienced Medical Oncologist who is highly active in research and draws on his interest and experience in clinical trials data and developments in the field to inform decision making and provide patients access to the latest treatments.
Bio
Dr Khan is an experienced Medical Oncologist who is highly active in research and draws on his interest and experience in clinical trials data and developments in the field to inform decision making and provide patients access to the latest treatments.
He combines a holistic and personalised approach to medicine that is based just as much on the patient’s individual wishes as pathological factors. He believes that good communication is key and wants patients to feel at absolute ease throughout their care.
As an active member of multidisciplinary teams at University College London Hospital (UCLH), The Whittington Hospital and The London Clinic, Dr Khan works closely with other disciplines, including surgeons, gastroenterologists, cardiologists and interventional radiologists to support decision-making at various stages of patient care.
Dr Khan remains at the forefront of cutting-edge research focusing on new targeted therapies in cancer, immunotherapy and genomics. Leading gastrointestinal research at the Clinical Research Facility (CRF) at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Trust, his team has concentrated on druggable target discovery and at UCL cancer institute, the team’s focus remains discovery of biomarkers using liquid biopsies, patient derived organoids (PDOs) and other novel technologies.
After completing junior doctors training in various parts of the UK, Dr Khan completed his training in medical oncology at Royal Marsden NHS Trust in London before joining Royal Marsden and Kingston Hospitals as a consultant in 2017. As a consultant at Royal Marsden, Khurum contributed to the development of a new Acute Oncology Services at the Royal Marsden Hospital. He then moved to UCLH and North Middlesex University Hospital (NMUH) in 2019. As NMUH’s Clinical Lead of Carcinomas of Unknown Primary and Research Lead, Dr Khan dedicated time to improving the provision of care for patients with these cancers.
Since 2022, he is working at UCLH and Whittington hospitals, leading early phase clinical trials in Gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies at CRF and working towards “UCLH at Whittington model”- a service that is expected to transform cancer care in North London. Dr Khan is best placed in delivering this service as he is GI research speciality lead at NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN).
More information
- Qualified 2001
- Academy of Medical Educators: FAcadMEd 2024
- MD (Res). “Identification of biomarkers of response or resistance to targeted therapies in chemotherapy refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC)” Institute of Cancer Research 2018
- Postgraduate Diploma in Oncology with distinctions in three modules including diagnostic imaging, multi-professional management of cancer, and cancer pathology 2014
- European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO): Diploma in Medical Oncology equivalent to postgraduate exit exam in the UK. 2011
- MRCP (Medical Oncology) Royal College of Physicians UK and the Association of Cancer Physicians 2010
- MRCP (UK) 2007
- Consultant Medical Oncologist
University College London NHS Foundation Trust and Whittington Health Care (WH) - Honorary Associate Professor
UCL Cancer Institute
Dr Khan has worked on over 60 high-impact publications.
Videos
NIHR bowel cancer research webinar
'Tumour size of a tennis ball': Warning over cancelled cancer screenings during coronavirus lockdown
As a trainee, Dr Khan was awarded the Robert McAlpine Fellowship studying mechanisms of response and resistance to target therapies in advanced colorectal cancer. He spent 18 months working within the Royal Marsden Drug Development Unit to gain experience of early phase clinical trials. Dr Khan has led several research projects over the past few years including the set up and conduct of large multi-centre academic studies into advanced gastrointestinal cancers. He is UK CI and co-PI on number of phase II/III studies. His landmark work demonstrated that evolutionary modelling combined with frequent serial sampling of circulating tumour (ct)DNA allows predicting the expected waiting time to treatment failure in individual patients providing novel opportunities for adaptive personalised therapies.
As well as this, Dr Khan has written and published several high-impact research papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Cancer Cell, Cancer Discovery, Gut, Gastroenterologist, Clinical Cancer Research, Oncogene, Oncologist, BMC Cancer, Cancers, and British Journal of Cancer etc. He served as expert member of National Research and Ethics Committee. He is the associate editor of gastroenterology section of Frontiers in Oncology and serves as reviewer on for many peer reviewed high impact journals, national and international grants. He has also presented and lectured at a number of national and international conferences and events.
Passionate about teaching, he also plays an active role in developing the national teaching curriculum for junior doctors. Since 2014 he has been writing questions for Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom (MRCP UK) and Medical Oncology exams.