Ruth Plummer is a Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine in The Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, and an honorary consultant medical oncologist in Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is a deputy director of Newcastle University Centre for Cancer, and also Director of the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre within the Northern Centre for Cancer Care, a dedicated early phase clinical trials. She leads the Newcastle Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and also the CRUK Newcastle Cancer Centre. She trained at Cambridge and Oxford before moving back home to Newcastle and settling with her family in the Tyne valley. Her clinical practice involves leading the systemic therapies for skin cancer, with a portfolio of trials across all phases of drug development. In addition, she runs a phase 1 all-comers practice, taking responsibility for one of the most active phase 1 units in the UK. Her research interests are in the field of DNA repair and early phase clinical trials of novel agents or novel imaging targets, taking the first-in-class PARP inhibitor into the clinic in 2003, ATR inhibitor in 2012 and MCT1 inhibitor in 2014. At a national level, she sits on CRUK’s Clinical Research Committee, chaired the CRUK New Agents Committee 2012-2019 and is a member of the NIHR EME Board, MRC Precision Medicine Group, and the NCRI Strategy Advisory Group.