Emeritus Professor Pamela Kearns PhD, FRCPCH

Professor Pamela Kearns

Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit
Emeritus Professor of Clinical Paediatric Oncology

Contact details

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Address
Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU)
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Pam Kearns is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Paediatric Oncology in the Department of Cancer and Genomic Sciences. Her research is focussed of drug development and innovation in the design and delivery of national and international clinical trials for childhood cancers. 

She was Director of the University‘s Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit from 2011-2023 and Director of the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences from 2021-2024. 

In January 2024, Pam was elected President of the European not-for-profit consortium ‘Innovative Therapeutics in Childhood Cancer’ (ITCC) and is a Founding Board member of multistakeholder platform ‘ACCELERATE’, promoting drug development for cancer in children and young people.  She was President of the European Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOPE) from 2019 -2021 and served in the SIOPE Board until December 2024.

In the UK, she chairs IMPACCT (Initiative for Multi-stakeholder Partnership to Accelerate Children’s Cancer Trials) a national initiative seeking to improve UK trial delivery for young patients with cancer.  In addition, she chairs the Research Assessment Panel for Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity, is a member of the NIHR Invention for Innovation Product Development Awards Selection Committee.  

Pam is Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees for Cancer Research UK and also Chair of the Board of Trustees for A Child of Mine, a charity dedicated to supporting bereaved parents. She is a Scientific Advisor to Children with Cancer UK and a Trusted Advisor to The Little Princess Trust. 

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Qualifications

  •  Fellowship of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 2009
  •  Certificate of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, University of Newcastle 2000
  •  PhD (LLR Clinical Training Fellowship), University of Newcastle 2000
  •  Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 1996
  •  Diploma in Medical Sciences, University of Newcastle
  •  Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (UK) Paediatrics 1993
  •  MBChB, Aberdeen University 1988
  •  BSc Honours. 2(1) Physiology, Aberdeen University 1982

Biography

As Emeritus Professor of Clinical Paediatric Oncology, Pam’s clinical interests are in childhood cancers and lymphomas. Her laboratory interests are in the development of novel treatment approaches for haematological malignancies. 

In 1982 Professor Kearns was awarded a BSc (Hons) in Physiology from the University of Aberdeen where she subsequently studied Medicine qualifying in 1988.  She was awarded a PhD in leukaemia biology from the Newcastle University in 2000, where she also completed her postgraduate training in paediatric oncology.  She was appointed Senior Lecturer/Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Oncology at the University of Bristol in 2002 and moved to Birmingham in 2007, where she further developed her research in childhood acute leukaemias and lymphomas, focussing on pre-clinical models and early phase drug development trials for evaluation of novel therapies.  She was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in 2009.  

Between 2012 to 2023, Professor Kearns was the Director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit, University of Birmingham where she led the research strategy for UK's largest cancer trials unit. From 2021-2024, she was Director of the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences.

Pam’s principal research interest is in clinical trials research in childhood cancer. Through her roles within the University of Birmingham, Cancer Research UK, ITCC, ACCELRATE and SIOP-Europe, she has provided national and international support and guidance on research governance, regulatory affairs and research ethics in relation to clinical trials. Since 2010, she served on the Executive Board of the European consortium for Innovative Therapeutics for Children with Cancer (ITCC); a consortium developing new treatments for childhood cancers and leukaemias through International partnerships and was elected President January 2024. 

Postgraduate supervision

Not accepting new PhD students.

Research

Research Themes

  • Primograft model for pre-clinical evaluation of novel therapies in haematological malignancies including models of both leukaemia and B cell lymphomas.

  • Laboratory research focused on developing primograft models of human childhood leukaemias in immunocompromised mice to evaluate new drug treatments and their mechanistic pathways. More recently this work has extended to in vivo models of lymphomas, both Hodgkins and Non-Hodglkins to investigated the tumour microenvironment and evaluate the impact of immune-modulation on the microenvironment as a novel therapeutic approach for paediatric lymphomas.

Research Centre

Cancer Research Clinical Trials Unit

Other activities

National

  • Cancer Research UK Trustee and Council Member (January 2021 to date Deputy Chair from 2024)
  • A Child of Mine Trustee and Chair of Board (2105 to date (Chair from November 2022))
  • Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre Paediatric Strategy Committee (February 2018-to date)
  • Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity Research Strategy Advisory Board member (May 2021 to date)
  • Chair of Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity Research Assessment Panel (May 2021 to date)
  • Children with Cancer Scientific Advisor to Board of Trustees (July 2022- to date)
  • Little Princess Trust Independent Advisor (June 2018- to date)

International

  • Innovative Therapeutics in Childhood Cancer (ITCC) Executive Board member since 2010, President from 1st January 2024
  • ACCELERATE (an International multi-stakeholder platform to accelerate innovation for children and adolescents with cancer) Board Member  (June 2018 to date)
  • Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute (Dublin) External Advisory Board (October 2022-to date)
  • AstraZeneca Paediatric Oncology Steering Committee (2019- to date)

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Gray, JC, Weston, R, Owens, C, Canete, A, Gambart, M, De Wilde, B, Nysom, K, van Eijkelenburg, N, Ladenstein, R, Castellano, A, Gerber, NU, Marshall, LV, Barone, G, Rubio-San-Simon, A, Ng, A, Vaidya, S, Gallego, S, Makin, G, Burke, GAA, McCarthy, A, Murphy, D, Zwaan, CM, López-Almaraz, R, Jannier, S, Thebaud, E, Corradini, N, Yeomanson, D, Howell, L, Tweddle, DA, Elliott, M, Hobin, D, Valteau-Couanet, D, Schleiermacher, G, Chastagner, P, Defachelles, AS, Brichard, B, George, S, Chesler, L, Laidler, J, Firth, C, Holt, G, Moroz, V, Pearson, ADJ, Gates, S, Wheatley, K, Kearns, P & Moreno, L 2026, 'Dinutuximab Beta Added to Temozolomide-Based Chemotherapy for Children With Relapsed and Refractory Neuroblastoma: Results of the ITCC-SIOPEN BEACON Immuno Phase II Trial', Journal of Clinical Oncology , vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 176-187. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO-25-01868

Brandon, AM, Huisman-Siebinga, H, Barnett, S, Wetherell, P, Kearns, P, Gibson, B, Heaney, N, Smith, O, Baruchel, A, Petit, A, Moore, A, Ogungbenro, K, Huitema, ADR, Veal, GJ & Lax, S 2026, 'Population pharmacokinetics and dose-response relationships of mitoxantrone in children with acute myeloid leukaemia', British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1002/bcp.70436

Brugha, R, Kirkham, A, Bate, J, Burke, GAA, Hughes, A, Magwaro, S, Pope, AM, Beesley, R, Lax, S, Kelly, E, Greenland, M, Minassian, AM, Liu, X, Billingham, L, McInnes, I, Goodyear, CS, Kearns, P, Wedderburn, LR & OCTAVE-Minor Collaborative Group 2026, 'SARS-CoV-2-Specific Immune Responses to Vaccination in Children and Adolescents with Suppressed Immune Systems: A Prospective, Observational Study', The Journal of pediatrics, vol. 289, 114873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2025.114873

Otth, M, de Rojas, T, Rauwolf, KK, Martins, M, Dirksen, U, Heenen, D, Kameric, L, Kearns, P, Ladenstein, R, Owens, C, Queiroz, C, Sullivan, R, Rizzari, C & Vassal, G 2025, 'Differences in care delivery for children and adolescents with cancer in Europe – results from the SIOPE OCEAN project', EJC Paediatric Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejcped.2025.100219

Kirkwood, AA, Goulden, N, Moppett, J, Samarasinghe, S, Hough, R, Rowntree, C, Lawson, S, Kearns, P, Lawson, A, Vora, A & Lax, S 2025, 'High-dose methotrexate in children and young adults with ALL and lymphoblastic lymphoma: Results of the randomized phase III study UKALL 2011', Journal of Clinical Oncology , vol. 43, no. 15, pp. 1810-1823. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO-24-01851

van Kuijk, A, Kearns, P & Burke, GAA 2025, 'Immunotherapy for Paediatric Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma: A Review of Current Clinical Trials and Future Directions', EJC Paediatric Oncology, vol. 5, 100228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejcped.2025.100228

George, SL, Lynn, C, Stankunaite, R, Hughes, D, Sauer, CM, Chalker, J, Waqar Ahmed, S, Oostveen, M, Proszek, PZ, Yuan, L, Shaikh, R, Jamal, S, Brew, A, Tall, J, Rogers, T, Clifford, SC, Vormoor, J, Shipley, JM, Tweddle, DA, Jones, C, Willis, C, Burke, GAA, Vedi, A, Howell, L, Johnston, R, Rees, H, Adams, M, Jesudason, A, Ronghe, M, Elliott, M, Ross, E, Makin, G, Campbell-Hewson, Q, Grundy, RG, Turnbull, J, Wilson, S, Lee, V, Gray, JC, Stoneham, S, Gatz, SA, Marshall, LV, Angelini, P, Anderson, J, Cresswell, GD, Graham, TA, Al-Lazikani, B, Cortés-Ciriano, I, Kearns, P, Hutchinson, JC, Hargrave, D, Jacques, TS, Hubank, M, Sottoriva, A & Chesler, L 2025, 'Stratified Medicine Pediatrics: Cell-Free DNA and Serial Tumor Sequencing Identifies Subtype-Specific Cancer Evolution and Epigenetic States', Cancer Discovery, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 717-732. https://doi.org/10.1158/2159-8290.CD-24-0916

Otth, M, Ocokoljic, M, Armenkova, T, Ban, I, Essiaf, S, Hopfgartner, M, Kameric, L, Kearns, PR, Kokkinou, G, Rizzari, C, Schneider, C & Scheinemann, K 2025, 'The Healthcare Professionals’ and Patient Advocates’ Perspectives on the Care for Children with Cancer in Europe: A Report from the ESCALIER Project', Current Oncology, vol. 32, no. 2, 84. https://doi.org/10.3390/curroncol32020084

Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer (ITCC) Consortium & European Association for Neuroblastoma Research (SIOPEN) 2024, 'Bevacizumab, Irinotecan, or Topotecan Added to Temozolomide for Children With Relapsed and Refractory Neuroblastoma: Results of the ITCC-SIOPEN BEACON-Neuroblastoma Trial', Journal of Clinical Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.23.00458

Syrimi, E, Khan, N, Murray, P, Willcox, C, Haigh, T, Willcox, B, Masand, N, Bowen, C, Dimakou, DB, Zuo, J, Barone, SM, Irish, JM, Kearns, P & Taylor, GS 2024, 'Defects in NK cell immunity of pediatric cancer patients revealed by deep immune profiling', iScience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.110837

Abstract

Gibson, B, Baruchel, A, Moore, A, Maycock, S, Smith, O, Shenton, G, Renard, C, Heaney, N, Lawson, A, Amrolia, P, Saultier, P, Ansari, M, Lapillonne, H, Dillon, R, Jovanovic, J, Cross, S, Virgo, P, Wheeler, L, Roumier, C, Duployez, N, Harrison, C, Schwab, C, Cuccuini, W, Lafage-Pochitaloff, M, Preudhomme, C, Hirsch, P, Veal, G, Gillis, D, Kearns, P, Leverger, G, Ancliff, P, Jackson, A & Petit, A 2025, 'Fludarabine and cytarabine is not superior to high dose cytarabine as consolidation therapy in standard risk AML in children: Results from the international Phase III MyeChild01 trial', Blood, vol. 146, no. Supplement 1, pp. 879-880. https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2025-879

Comment/debate

Chisholm, J, Mandeville, H, Adams, M, Minard-Collin, V, Rogers, T, Kelsey, A, Shipley, J, van Rijn, RR, de Vries, I, van Ewijk, R, de Keizer, B, Gatz, SA, Casanova, M, Hjalgrim, LL, Firth, C, Wheatley, K, Kearns, P, Liu, W, Kirkham, A, Rees, H, Bisogno, G, Wasti, A, Wakeling, S, Heenen, D, Tweddle, DA, Merks, JHM & Jenney, M 2024, 'Correction: Chisholm et al. Frontline and Relapsed Rhabdomyosarcoma (FaR-RMS) Clinical Trial: A Report from the European Paediatric Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group (EpSSG). Cancers 2024, 16, 998', Cancers, vol. 16, no. 19, 3427. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers16193427

Wilson, JS, Main, C, Thorp, N, Taylor, RE, Majothi, S, Kearns, PR, English, M, Dandapani, M, Phillips, R, Wheatley, K & Pizer, B 2024, 'Correction to: The effectiveness and safety of proton beam radiation therapy in children and young adults with Central Nervous System (CNS) tumours: a systematic review', Journal of Neuro-Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-024-04612-7

Editorial

Childhood Haematology and Oncology Research on Disparities Group (CHORD), Bate, J, Ranasinghe, N, Patel, G & Feltbower, RG 2025, 'Ethnicity and childhood cancer survival', BMJ, vol. 390, r1350. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1350

Letter

Lawson, A, Kearns, P, Moorman, AV & Lax, S 2025, 'Benchmarking the paediatric T-cell ALL subtype classifier, TALLSorts', British Journal of Haematology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjh.70263

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Expertise

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