Dr Khurum Khan
As a consultant, I aim to provide my patients with the highest level of cancer care available to them
Khurum remains at the forefront of cutting-edge research focussing 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 biomakers using liquid biopsies, patient derived organoids (PDOs) and other novel technologies.
After completing junior doctors training in various parts of the UK, Khurum trained in medical oncology at Royal Marsden NHS Trust in London and at the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre 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, Khurum 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. Khurum is best placed in delivering this service as he is GI research speciality lead at NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN).
As a trainee, Khurum 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. Khurum has led several research projects over the past few years including the set up and conduct of large multicentre academic studies into advanced gastrointestinal cancers. Along with chief investigator Professor David Cunningham, he secured funding to run a phase II study of an inhibitor in metastatic refractory colorectal cancer. 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, Khurum has written and published several high-impact research papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Cancer Discovery, Gut, Gastroenterologist, Clinical Cancer Research, Oncogene, Oncologist, BMC Cancer, Cancers, and British Journal of Cancer. 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. He serves as Honorary Associate Professor at Aga Khan University hospital, a leading teaching institute in Pakistan. Lecturing regularly, he has developed the country’s national medical oncology training program.
As well as treating patients at ULCH Whittington, patients can also see Khurum privately at Leaders in Oncology Care (LOC), part of the HCA UK network of private hospitals.