Dr Timothy Bishop
Head of Division
D.T.Bishop@leeds.ac.uk

Click here for Tim’s biographical sketch

Professor Tim Bishop is a genetic epidemiologist, and head of the division. He trained in probability theory at the University of Sheffield and subsequently in genetic epidemiology at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. He has worked in Leeds for the biggest cancer charity in the UK, the ICRF, now Cancer Research UK, since 1989. His interests are in the genetic epidemiology of cancer, in the methodology of analysis and particularly now in understanding the genes predisposing to cancer of the colon, testis and melanoma.

With respect to GenoMEL he plays a key role in the analysis of pooled data across the Consortium.

Click here for Tim’s references

The Melanoma Group

The work of this group is funded principally by the Genetic Epidemiology Programme at Cancer Research UK.

It benefits from additional funding from the NIH RO1 CA83115.

Principal researchers

Julia A. Newton Bishop
j.a.newton-bishop@leeds.ac.uk

Click here for Julia’s biographical sketch

Professor Julia Newton Bishop is a dermatologist, who has worked to understand what causes melanoma since 1989.

Her research is funded predominantly by the ICRF, now Cancer Research UK. She is responsible for screening for melanoma and treating melanoma in Leeds and also runs the paediatric dermatology service at St James’s Hospital. She has led the development of guidelines for the treatment of melanoma in the UK and more recently the Yorkshire atopic eczema guidelines. Click here to see a pdf of the guidelines.

In 1989 she began a case-control study of melanoma and started to identify families susceptible to melanoma, based first at the London Hospital in Whitechapel, London and more recently in Leeds in the North of England. A newsletter for families who have taken part in this research programme is available via the patient section of this web site or by post. Families continue to be recruited to the study and the contact for this study is Linda Whitaker: see below.

Some ten years ago Julia instigated the formation of GenoMEL, the Melanoma Genetics Consortium, with interested colleagues, whilst at the Sydney World Melanoma Congress, and she has chaired the Consortium since. Her role is to promote collaborative research and to support the identification of funding for the collaborative research internationally.

In the following years her research has been directed towards:

Understanding genetic predisposition to melanoma (see publications below)

Understanding the relationship between naevi (moles) and melanoma risk

Understanding treatment issues in melanoma

Understanding the psycho-oncology of melanoma

The genetic epidemiology of relapse: that is understanding what genes and environmental exposures govern why melanoma may recur. A large cohort study of melanoma patients has been set up to address these issues and a study of late relapsing melanoma.

NCRNI web site.

Jennifer Barrett
j.h.barrett@leeds.ac.uk

Click here for Jennifer's biographical sketch

Dr Jenny Barrett leads the statistical group within the Genetic Epidemiology Division. She trained in mathematics at Oxford University, then statistics at the University of Sheffield, obtaining a PhD in statistical genetics in 1993. Since then she has held academic posts at the Universities of Leeds and Manchester, before joining the group in 2000.

Her interests are in the application and development of statistical methods and study designs to investigate the genetic epidemiology of complex diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. Current focuses of research include investigation of the joint effect of genes and environment (mainly in application to melanoma and colorectal cancer), analytical issues in candidate gene association studies and proteomics. With Faye Elliot she is involved in the statistical analysis of the data from the melanoma studies.

Molecular biologists

Mark Harland
m.harland@leeds.ac.uk

Dr Mark Harland joined us in 1996 and he is the lead molecular biologist within the melanoma group. He has made a contribution of international importance to understanding genetic predisposition to melanoma by the categorisation of mutations in English families. In particular, he has identified deep intronic mutations in CDKN2A, and more recently splice site variants in exon 1ß of CDKN2A coding for the protein p14ARF.

Juliette Randerson Moor
j.a.moor@cancermed.leeds.ac.uk

Dr Juliette Randerson Moor joined the group in 1996. She serves a crucial role in managing the molecular biology laboratory. She has been active in many different cancer related projects. For the melanoma group she played a key role in establishing for the first time that p14ARF is the third melanoma susceptibility gene by the identification and delineation of a germline deletion in the gene coding for the p14ARF protein. More recently she has carried out work looking at potential low penetrance melanoma susceptibility genes.

Kairen Kukalizch
k.kukalizch@cancermed.leeds.ac.uk

Kairen Kukalizch joined the group in 2001. She originally worked on a project looking at the genetic determinants of haemochromatosis but has subsequently been working with GenoMEL samples. She has played an important role in a GenoMEL collaborative project comparing DHPLC screening for germline mutations with sequencing. She is currently screening GenoMEL samples for relations using the MLPA technique.

PhD-students

Caroline Conway
c.conway04@leeds.ac.uk

Research Nurses

Linda Whitaker
L.M.Whitaker@leeds.ac.uk

Linda has a higher degree in applied research and has worked on familial susceptibility to melanoma in the UK since 1998. She maintains the database, and is the main contact for families participating in the project. She collects data by questionnaire from family members, arranges venesection and counts participants’ moles. She is a key member of the project.

The following nurses work on the large Northern and Yorkshire cohort/case-control study of melanoma which has been recruiting melanoma patients since 2000. This was funded as a pilot project by Cancer Research UK and more recently by the NIH under RO1 CA83115.

Susan Leake
S.Leake@leeds.ac.uk

Susan Haynes
S.M.Haynes@leeds.ac.uk

Birute Karpavicius
B.Karpavicius@leeds.ac.uk

Statisticians working on the melanoma project with Dr Barrett

Faye Elliott
F.Elliott@leeds.ac.uk
Faye provides critical support for many projects within the group.

Ruby Chang
Y.Chang@leeds.ac.uk
Ruby is conducting a meta-analysis as part of the GenoMEL project.

John Taylor
j.c.taylor@leeds.ac.uk
John provides specific support for the GenoMEL genome wide association studies.

SNB/Stage III Melanoma research subgroup

Christy Walker
Research Nurse/Project Manager
C.L.R.Walker@leeds.ac.uk

Dr Angana Mitra
Honorary Lecturer in Dermatology
A.Mitra@leeds.ac.uk

For further information regarding this work please see http://www.genomel.org/systemsnb/

Research Coordinators

Sandra Tovey
s.tovey@leeds.ac.uk

Pauline Brunyee
P.Brunyee@leeds.ac.uk

Yvonne Taylor
Y.Taylor@leeds.ac.uk

Saila Waseem
s.waseem@leeds.ac.uk

Managers

Paul Affleck
GenoMEL Project Manager
p.a.affleck@leeds.ac.uk

Jane Harrison
GenoMEL Manager (Finances)
j.j.harrison@leeds.ac.uk

Joanne Gascoyne
Family History Database Manager
j.gascoyne@leeds.ac.uk
Jo has responsibility for the Oracle Family database where all the pedigrees are kept. She is a key member of the department for all the family studies.

May Chan
Database Manager
m.m.chan@leeds.ac.uk
May underpins all data collection in the group. She develops databases and maintains them. She has played a very important role in GenoMEL by providing support for the U Penn group in the development of a shared data base and by developing the interface of this data base with Progeny.