Professor Justin Stebbing

Professor Justin Stebbing is a Professor of Biomedical Sciences at ARU, Cambridge. He is Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene. He was previously a Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology at Imperial College, London (2009-2022), specialising in a range of malignancies, their treatment with immunotherapy (breast, GI and lung and clinical trials) and linking the laboratory to the clinic via translational research. He was also the NIHR's first research translational Professor of Oncology.

Background

Justin's track record as a clinician scientist has led to more than 650 peer-reviewed papers, more than 50 of which have appeared in journals with an impact factor exceeding 10, the vast majority as first or last author (current H-score on Google Scholar = 90).

He originally studied medicine at Trinity College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree before moving to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA then returning to complete training at the Royal Marsden and St Barts Hospitals. In 2007 he was appointed a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London and a Consultant Oncologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, then a Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology in 2009 (he is now a Visiting Professor there).

The nature of Justin's scientific contributions and international leadership in translational research were recognised by being awarded the NIHR’s first research translational professorship, becoming Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene - Springer Nature’s cancer journal - and elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

He was also Chair of the Irish Cancer Society and a national charity, Action Against Cancer, was set up to support his research.

Justin originally commenced his translational research career investigating the link between immunology, tumours and viruses, establishing mechanisms of non-progression in disease such as HIV-1. He extended this to cancer, showing how antiretrovirals worked to prevent tumorigenesis at both an individual level and in large cohorts. This occurred as soon as he arrived back in the UK following his residency program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and he completed an MRC-funded PhD fellowship on the contribution of viruses and immunity to cancer and its eradication.

His papers on HIV-1 and antiretrovirals (as first or last author he published more than 150 on HIV/cancer, including 30 in journals with an impact factor exceeding 10), showed a reduction in mortality in AIDS-defining cancers and resolution of individual lesions.

Following this, Justin turned his attention to solid cancers, and focused on drug development, non-coding RNAs, kinases and biomarkers. By way of one example, a team he led described for the first time a new gene, LMTK3 (published in Nature Medicine), and went on to establish its place in some of the most central tumorigenic pathways. We are now undertaking a drug-development program across malignancies. This is also designed to increase health and wealth of the nation, establish national/international collaborations and provide training/teaching for scientists, linking their work to the clinic.

In the last few years, work on this kinase alone has led to high impact factor papers as first or last author in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Gastroenterology, Cell Reports, Science Signaling, PNAS, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics and Genome Research, in differing models, to name a sample.

Justin has also been a Principal Investigator on a large number of clinical studies of novel/innovative compounds but also led the global development of a biosimilar (CT-P6) of the high value drug Herceptin, and it is now available to the developing world cheaply, ensuring equity in low- and middle-income countries.

There has been global media interest in this work over the years and he has been committed to communicating the excitement of biomedical science to lay audiences.

During the pandemic, Justin was motivated with his team to make a difference. Following his Lancet journal publications describing using AI to find a new drug in early 2020 (now cited thousands of times), he led many of the mechanistic, laboratory and global studies leading to baricitinib’s FDA approval in November 2020. The WHO has given it its highest evidence level.

Baricitinib has the greatest mortality benefits of any drug in the pandemic for hospitalized patients with COVID-19. A book he wrote describing the story of its discovery, Witness to Covid, is widely available. It is testament to the broad utility of AI, teamwork and collaboration.

Recent papers Justin has published bring down barriers between industry and academics. To give one example, a recent Science Advances paper he led includes 55 authors from 33 institutions in 12 countries. He was the senior author on an LMTK3 paper in the same issue of Science Advances. In 2023 Justin's team published in Nature Communications the mutational landscape of the healthy breast which provides a normal reference breast genome, and helps understand the effects of age and pregnancy on mutations in normal cells.

Aligning with his CT-P6 biosimilar work which concerned equitable drug access, baricitinib for COVID-19 as a simple once/daily tablet with a short half-life, no drug-drug interactions, a low cost and few side effects, has lent itself for use in low- and middle-income countries, a key component of his work. He aims to make a difference to the quality and quantity of life of patients, and help turn cancer into a curable disease.

In 2024 Justin led work on the first-in-human trials using invariant natural killer cells as a cell therapy, in critically unwell patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, data also published in Nature Communications.

A new paper in Nature Medicine on which Justin is co-corresponding author shows a new immunotherapy combination can induce durable responses in heavily pre-treated colon cancer. This is the first time that immunotherapy has been shown to consistently work in a cold tumour type.

Justin is a member of the Biomedical Research Group.

Selected recent publications

Selected publications since 2020:

Hammond TC, Purbhoo MA, Kadel S, Ritz J, Nikiforow S, Daley H, Shaw K, van Besien K, Gomez-Arteaga A, Stevens D, Ortuzar W, Michelet X, Smith R, Moskowitz D, Masakayam R, Yigit B, Boi S, Soh KT, Chamberland J, Song X, Qin Y, Mischenko I, Kirby , Nasonenko V, Buffa A, Buell JB, Chand D, Dijk MV, Stebbing J*, Exley MA*. A phase 1/2 trial of invariant natural killer T cells in moderate-to-severe acute respiratory distress syndrome. Nature Communications, 2024;15:974. *Joint senior authors.

Bullock AJ, Schlechter BL, Fakih MG, Tsimberidou AM, Grossman JE, Gordon MS, Wilky BA, Pimentel A, Mahadevan D, Balmanoukian AS, Sanborn RE, Schwartz GK, Abou-Alfa GK, Segal NH, Bockorny B, Moser JC, Sharma S, Patel JM, Wu W, Chand D, Rosenthal K, Mednick G, Delepine C, Curiel TJ, Stebbing J*, Lenz HJ, O'Day SJ, El-Khoueiry AB*. Botensilimab plus balstilimab in relapsed/refractory microsatellite stable colorectal cancer: a phase 1 trial. Nature Medicine, 2024, Epub ahead of print. *Co-corresponding authors.

Stebbing J, Schlechter BL. Genes and race in colon cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2024;42:4.

Stebbing J, Bullock AJ. Polo-like kinase 1 inhibition in KRAS-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer. Clinical Cancer Research, 2024; Epub ahead of print.

Allsop RC, Guo Q, Page K, Baggani S, Kassim A, Badman P, Kenny L, Stebbing J, Shaw JA. Circulating tumour DNA dynamics during alternating chemotherapy and hormonal therapy in metastatic breast cancer: the ALERT study. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 2024, Epub ahead of print.

Vella V, Ditsiou A, Chalari A, Eravci M, Wooller SK, Gagliano T, Bani C, Kerschbamer E, Karakostas C, Xu B, Zhang Y, Pearl FMG, Lopez G, Peng L, Stebbing J, Klinakis A, Giamas G. Kinome-wide synthetic lethal screen identifies PANK4 as a mediator of temozolamide resistance in glioblastoma. Advanced Science, 2024;11: e2306027.

Shaw JA, Page K, Wren E, de Bruin EC, Kalashnikova E, Hastings R, McEwen R, Zhang E, Wadsley M, Acheampong E, Renner D, Gleason KLT, Ambasager B, Stetson D, Fernandez-Garcia D, Guttery D, Allsopp RC, Rodriguez A, Zimmermann B, Sethi H, Aleshin A, Liu MC, Richards C, Stebbing J, Ali S, Rehman F, Cleator S, Kenny L, Ahmed S, Armstrong AC, Coombes RC.Serial Postoperative Circulating Tumor DNA Assessment Has Strong Prognostic Value During Long-Term Follow-Up in Patients With Breast Cancer. JCO Precision Oncology, 2024;e2300456.

Schlechter B, Stebbing J. CCR5 and CCL5 in metastatic colorectal cancer. Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. 2024;12:e008722.

Liang F, Peng L, Wu Z, Giamas G, Stebbing J. Design and reporting of phase III oncology trials with prospective biomarker validation. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2023;115:174-180.

Cereser B, You A, Tabassum N, Belluz LDB, Zagorac S, Ancheta KRZ, Zhong R, Miere C, Jeffries-Jones A, Moderau N, Werner B, Stebbing J. The mutational landscape of the adult healthy parous and nulliparous human breast. Nature Communications, 2023;14:1536.

Stebbing J, Takis PG, Sands PJ, Maslin L, Lewis MR, Gleason K, Page K, Guttery D, Fernandez-Garcia D, Primrose L, Shaw JA. Comparison of phenomics and cfDNA in a large breast screening population: the Breast Screening and Monitoring Study (BSMS). Oncogene, 2023;11:825-832.

Peng W, Wang Z, Zhu L, Sun Y, Castellano L, Stebbing J, Yu Z, Peng L. A pyroptosis-related lncRNA signature in bladder cancer. Cancer Medicine, 2023;12:6348-6364.

Glaviano A, Foo ASC, Lam HY, Jacot W, Jones RH, Eng H, Nair M, Makvandi P, Carbone D, Pecoraro D, Teh DBL, Sethi G, Valeria G, Lin VH, Stebbing J, Fruman DA, Kumar KP. PI3K/AKT/mTOR signal transduction pathway in cancer. Molecular Cancer, 2023;22:1-37.

Stebbing J, Nievas GS, Falcone M, Youhanna S, Richardson P, Ottaviani S, Shen JX, Sommerauer C, Tiseo G, Ghiadoni L, Virdis A, Monzani F, Rizos LR, Forfori F, Céspedes AA, De Marco S, Carrozzi L, Lena F, Sánchez-Jurado PM, Lacerenza LG, Cesira N, Bernardo DC, Perrella A, Niccoli L, Méndez LS, Matarrese D, Goletti D, Tan YJ, Monteil V, Dranitsaris G, Cantini F, Farcomeni A, Dutta S, Burley SK, Zhang H, Pistello M, Li W, Romero MM, Pretel FA, Simón-Talero RS, García-Molina R, Kutter C, Felce JH, Nizami ZF, Miklosi AG, Penninger JM, Menichetti F, Mirazimi A, Abizanda P, Lauschke VM. JAK inhibition reduces SARS-CoV-2 liver infectivity and modulates inflammatory responses to reduce morbidity and mortality. Science Advances, 2021;7:eabe4724.

These data amongst others (many of which are below), led to an Emergency Use Authorisation by the USA Food and Drug Administration for baricitinib to treat hospitalised patients with COVID-19, 9 months after our initial papers in the Lancet and Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Sims JT, Krishnan V, Chang C-Y, Engle SM, Casalini G, Rodgers GH, Bivi N, Nickoloff BJ, Konrad RJ, de Bono S, Higgs RE, Benschop RJ, Ottaviani S, Cardosa A, Nirula A, Corbellino M, Stebbing J. Characterization of the Cytokine Storm Reflects Hyperinflammatory Endothelial Dysfunction in COVID-19. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2021;147:107-111.

Stebbing J, Lauschke V. JAK inhibitors: more than glucocorticoids. New England Journal of Medicine, 2021; 385(5):463-465.

Kalil AC, Stebbing J. Baricitinib: The first immunomodulatory treatment for COVID-19 to demonstrate mortality reduction in a placebo-controlled double-blind study. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 2021;S2213-2600(21)00358-1.

Melikhov O, Kruglova T, Lytkina K, Melkonyan G, Prokhorovich E, Putsman G, Rodoman G, Vertkin A, Zagrebneva A, Stebbing J. The use of Janus kinase inhibitors in COVID-19: a prospective observational series in 522 individuals. Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, 2021;80:1245-1246.

Salmerón Ríos S, Mas Romero M, Cortés Zamora EB, Tabernero Sahuquillo MT, Romero Rizos L, Sánchez-Jurado PM, Sánchez-Nievas G, Blas Señalada JJ, García Nogueras I, Estrella Cazalla JD, Andrés-Pretel F, Murillo Romero A, Lauschke VM, Stebbing J, Abizanda P. Immunogenicity of the BNT162b2 vaccine in frail or disabled nursing home residents: COVID-A study. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 2021;69:1441-1447.

Abizanda P, Calbo Mayo MM, Mas Romero M, Cortes Zamora EB, Tabernerno Sahuquillo MTT, Romero Rizos LR, Sanchez-Jurado PM, Sanchez-Nevas G, Andres-Pretel F, Lauschke VM, Stebbing J. Baricitinib significantly reduces 30-day mortality in older adults with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 202169:2752-2758.

Zhang H, Han H, He T, Labbe KE, Hernandez-Diaz A, Chen H, Velcheti V, Stebbing J*, Wong KK. Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes of COVID-19-Infected Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2021;113:371-380. *joint last author.

Castellano L, Zagorac S, de Giorgio A, Kalisz M, Casas-Vila N, Cathcart P, You A, Ottaviani S, Degani N, Lombardo Y, Tweedie A, Nissan T, Vance K, Ulitsky I, Stebbing J*, Dabrowska A*. SCIRT lncRNA restrains tumourigenesis by opposing transcriptional programmes of tumour-initiating cells. Cancer Research, 2021;81:580-593. *joint last author.

Page K, Martinson LJ, Hastings RK, Fernandez-Garcia D, Gleason KLT, Gray MC, Rushton AJ, Goddard K, Guttery DS, Stebbing J, Coombes RC, Shaw JA. Prevalence of ctDNA in early screen-detected breast cancers using highly sensitive and specific dual molecular barcoded mutation assays. Annals of Oncology, 2021;S0923-7534.

Stebbing J, Baranau YV, Baryash V, Manikhas A, Moiseyenko V, Dzagnidze G, Zhavrid E, Boliukh D, Pikiel J, Eniu AE, Li RK, Tiangco B, Lee SJ, Kim S. Long term efficacy and safety of CT-P6 versus trastuzumab in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer: final results from a randomized phase III trial. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 2021;188:631-640.

Page K, Martinson LJ, Fernandez-Garcia D, Hills A, Gleason KT, Gray MC, Rushtonn AJ, Nteliopoulos G, Hastings RK, Goddard K, Ions LM, Palmieri C, Ali S, Stebbing J, Coombes RC. Circulating tumour DNA profiling from Breast Cancer screening through to metastatic disease. JCO Precision Oncology, 2021;24:5.

Richardson P, Griffin I, Tucker C, Smith D, Oechsle O, Phelan A, Stebbing J. Baricitinib as potential treatment for 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease. The Lancet, 2020;395:e30-e31.

Stebbing J, Phelan A, Griffin I, Tucker C, Oechsle O, Smith D, Richardson P. COVID-19: combining anti-viral and anti-inflammatory treatments. Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2020;20(4):400-402.

The 2 pieces above published in early February 2020 have been cited >1000 times and spurred the international development of baricitinib to treat COVID-19, and its subsequent computer-bench-bedside driven FDA approval.

Ottaviani S, Stebbing J. What is the best drug to treat COVID-19? The need for randomised trials. Cell Press. Med Cell Press, 2020;1:9-10.

Richardson P, Corbellino M, Stebbing J. Baricitinib for COVID-19: a suitable treatment? Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2020; 20:1013-1014.

Stebbing J, Krishnan V, de Bono S, Ottaviani S, Casalini G, Richardson PJ, Monteil V, Lauschke VM, Mirazimi A, Youhanna S, Tan YJ, Baldanti F, Sarasini A, Ross Terres JA, Nickoloff BJ, Higgs RE, Rocha G, Byers NL, Schlichting DE, Nirula A, Cardosa A, Corebellino M. Mechanism of baricitinib supports artificial intelligence-predicted testing in COVID-19 patients. EMBO Molecular Medicine, 2020;12:e12697.

Ditsiou A, Cilibrasi C, Simigdala N, Papakyriakou A, Milton-Harris L, Vella V, Nettleship JE, Lo JH, Soni S, Smbatyan G, Ntavelou P, Gagliano T, Iachini MC, Khurshid S, Simon T, Zhou L, Hassell-Hart S, Carter P, Pearl LH, Owen RL, Owens RJ, Roe SM, Chayen NE, Lenz HJ, Spencer J, Prodromou C, Klinakis A, Stebbing J*, Giamas G*. The structure-function relationship of LMTK3. Science Advances, 2020;46: eabc3099. *joint last author.

Stebbing J, Mainwaring P, Curigliano G, Pegram M, Latymer M, Bair A, Rugo HS. Understanding the Role of Comparative Clinical Studies in the Development of Oncology Biosimilars. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2020;38(10):1070-1080.

Gagliano T, Shah K, Gargani S, Ditsiou A, Vella V, Ntafis V, Bresciani G, Bienkowska K, Chen J, Lao L, Carter P, Alsaleem M, Rakha EA, Benstead-Hum G, O’Hanlon T, Michael Dean M, Pearl FMG, Song E, Green AR, Kontoyiannis DL, Stebbing J, Giamas G. PIK3Cδ expression by fibroblasts promotes triple-negative breast cancer progression. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2020; 130:3188-3224.

Media experience

How asbestos exposure continues to be a dire health risk – 25 years after it was banned. The Conversation, 25 October 2024.

Chris Hoy reveals that he has terminal cancer – here’s how to spot early signs of prostate cancer. The Conversation, 22 October 2024.

Victor Ambros on the team effort behind his Nobel-prize winning discovery of microRNA – podcast. The Conversation, 17 October 2024.

Alcohol Plays a Major Role in New Cancer Cases. Wired, 5 October 2024.

All the reasons a cup of coffee really can be good for you. The Conversation, 20 August 2024

Some say a shot of olive oil can prevent a hangover – here’s what the science says. The Conversation, 17 July 2024

An update on mRNA cancer vaccines. Advances in vaccine technology are now being applied to cancers. The Royal College of Pathologists, 15 July 2024

Groundbreaking cancer treatment may trigger more cancer – but here’s why you shouldn’t worry, The Conversation, 20 June 2024.

Immunotherapy Shows Promise for Colorectal Cancer in Trial, Technology Network, 17 June 2024.

Study indicates that immunotherapy could tackle most common form of bowel tumour, Science Daily, 14 June 2024.

New hope for cancer patients with new 'game changing' drug combo, Mirror, 14 June 2024.