Dr Andrew D Beggs FRCS (Gen), PhD

Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
Reader in Surgery & Cancer Genetics
Cancer Research UK & RCSEng Advanced Clinician Scientist
Consultant Colorectal & General Surgeon

Contact details

Email: a.beggs@bham.ac.uk

Address: Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
University of Birmingham
Vincent Drive
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Andrew Beggs is a Reader in Cancer Genetics & Surgery in the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham. He currently holds a Cancer Research UK & Royal College of Surgeons Advanced Clinician Scientist award. He is also an Consultant Colorectal & General Surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham with a subspeciality interest in laparoscopic rectal cancer surgery and advanced endoscopy.

His major research interests include colorectal, oesophageal and sarcoma cancer biology and translational medicine. He has published articles in The Lancet, Gut, Journal of Pathology and PLoS Genetics. He collaborated in writing the European consensus guidelines for the management of Peutz-Jeghers syndrome.

Andrew has been awarded grant funding from Cancer Research UK, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Illumina UK, Cancer Research UK, Mason Medical Research Foundation, Peel Medical Research Trust & St Georges Hospital Charity.

His current research programme is examining the molecular genetics of colorectal cancer, and has recently received programme funding from CRUK to set up organoid model systems to understand neoadjuvant chemoradiosensitivity in rectal cancer. He is also carrying out research into rare cancers using multi-omics profiling; biomarker development technologies and runs a bioinformatics “dry-lab” to search for novel therapeutic targets and stratification markers.

For more information please look at his personal website or the laboratory website .

Qualifications

FRCS(Gen) – subspecialty training in Coloproctology 2016
PhD Cancer Genetics, 2012
MRCS (England), 2006
MBBS with distinction Medicine & Surgery, 2003
BSc(Hons) Radiological Sciences (i), 2000

Biography

Andrew qualified from Guy’s, Kings & St. Thomas’ Hospitals School of Medicine, Kings College London in 2003 with distinction, where he also completed a BSc in Radiological Sciences at Kings College London where he carried out research into the use of standardised uptake values (SUV) in 18-fluorodeoxyglucose and 11C-methionine Positron Emission Tomography (18FDG-PET) in quantifying malignant potential in tumours.

Andrew was an Anatomy Demonstrator at Guys Hospital, Kings College London, under supervision of Professor Harold Ellis & Professor Susan Standring (Editor of Grays Anatomy). He then undertook a Basic Surgical Training rotation at St Georges Hospital, London and Kingston Hospital, Surrey, being awarded the Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2006.

Andrew started his doctoral research in 2007 when he was appointed a research registrar in Colorectal Surgery at Croydon University Hospital, undertaking research leading to the award of a PhD in the laboratory of Professor Ian Tomlinson at the London Research Institute of Cancer Research UK, latterly at the University of Oxford. Andrew was also supervised by Professor Shirley Hodgson (St Georges, University of London) and Mr Muti Abulafi (Croydon University Hospital). Subsequent to his research, he was appointed to the higher surgical training scheme in South-West London and Surrey in 2010 as a Specialty Registrar in General Surgery.

He was then appointed as a deanery-funded Academic Clinical Lecturer (ACL) in General Surgery at the University of Birmingham/West Midlands Deanery where he undertook training in General Surgery and subspecialist training in Coloproctology. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust postdoctoral fellowship for Clinician Scientists and undertook work examining novel determinants of radiosensitivity in rectal cancer. He gained his Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training in General Surgery and Coloproctology in October 2016.

Teaching

BMedSc Years 1,2,3
MBChB programme
MSc Clinical Oncology
MSc Genomic Medicine
MSc Bioinformatics

Postgraduate supervision

Andrew has supervised multiple successful clinical and non-clinical PhD and MD projects at Birmingham. He is interested in supervising doctoral research students in the following areas:

Colorectal, oesophageal and sarcoma cancer genetics/biology
Cancer genetics in general
Next generation sequencing techniques
Cancer bioinformatics

Research

Basic science:

Epigenetics
Biomarkers
Colorectal cancer genetics
Colorectal cancer biology
Retroperitoneal Sarcoma
Genome association wide studies
Telomere biology & genome stability
DNA repair
Next generation sequencing
Microarrays (SNP, aCGH & methylation)
Bioinformatics

Clinical:

Rectal cancer
Pelvic floor dysfunction
Anal incontinence
Bedside ultrasound
Regression modelling & statistical analysis

Other activities

GMC Partner:

I work for the General Medical Council appraising specialist and foundation training in surgery as well as curriculum approvals for surgical specialties.

Deputy Chair of Junior Investigators Group, CRUK Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre Network 2012-2015

Scientific Director, College of Medical and Dental Sciences Genomics Facility (Genomics Birmingham)

Andrew is currently a reviewer for The Lancet, British Medical Journal, The Journal of Neurological Sciences, British Journal of Surgery, Genes Chromosomes & Cancers, Gastroenterology and PLoS ONE. He also acts as a peer reviewer for Cancer Research UK, the MRC, The CORE Charity, Big-C Cancer Research and Heart UK.

University enabling technologies committee GeCIP for 100KG colorectal

Publications

Pachnio A, Ciaurriz M, Begum J, Lal N, Zuo J, Beggs A, Moss P. Cytomegalovirus Infection Leads to Development of High Frequencies of Cytotoxic Virus-Specific CD4+ T Cells Targeted to Vascular Endothelium. PLoS Pathog. 2016 Sep 8;12(9):e1005832.

Beggs AD, Dilworth MP, Domingo E, Midgely R, Kerr D, Tomlinson IP, Middleton GW. Methylation changes in the TFAP2E promoter region are associated with BRAF mutation and poorer overall & disease free survival in colorectal cancer. Oncoscience. 2015 Mar 23;2(5):508-16.

Lal N, Beggs AD, Wilcox B, Middleton GW. An immunogenomic stratifier of colorectal cancer: implications for the development of targeted immunotherapy. Oncoimmunology 4:3, e976052 DOI: 10.4161/ 2162402X.2014.976052

Mussai F, Egan S, Higginbotham-Jones J, Perry T, Beggs A, Odintsova E, Loke J, Pratt G, U KP, Lo A, Ng M, Kearns P, Cheng P, De Santo C. Blood. 2015 Feb 20. pii: blood-2014-09-600643.

Beggs AD, Dilworth MP. Surgery in the era of the ‘omics revolution. Br J Surg. 2015 Jan;102(2):e29-40.

Leong KJ, Beggs A, James J, Morton DG, Matthews GM, Bach SP. Biomarker-based treatment selection in early-stage rectal cancer to promote organ preservation. Br J Surg. 2014 Sep;101(10):1299-309.

Beggs AD, Jones A, Shepherd N, Arnaout A, Finlayson C, Abulafi AM, Morton DG, Matthews GM, Hodgson SV, Tomlinson IP. Loss of expression and promoter methylation of SLIT2 are associated with sessile serrated adenoma formation. PLoS Genet. 2013 May;9(5):e1003488.

Beggs AD, Domingo E, Abulafi M, Hodgson SV, Tomlinson IP. A study of genomic instability in early preneoplastic colonic lesions. Oncogene Dec 2012. doi: 10.1038/ onc.2012.584.

Beggs AD, Domingo E, McGregor M, Presz M, Johnstone E, Midgley R, Kerr D, Oukrif D, Novelli M, Abulafi M, Hodgson SV, Fadhil W, Ilyas M, Tomlinson IP. Loss of expression of the double strand break repair protein ATM is associated with worse prognosis in colorectal cancer and loss of Ku70 expression is associated with CIN. Oncotarget, 3(10).

Beggs AD, Jones A, El-Bahwary M, Abulafi M, Hodgson SV, Tomlinson IP. Whole-genome methylation analysis of benign and malignant colorectal tumours. J Pathol. 2012 Oct 24. doi: 10.1002/path.4132.

Jones AM, Beggs AD, Carvajal-Carmona L, Walker M, Howarth K, Farrington S, Campbell H, Zauber A, Bertagnolli M, Kerr D, Hodgson SV, Dunlop M, Tomlinson I. Longer telomeres and TERC polymorphisms are associated with an increased risk of colorectal carcinoma and adenoma. Gut. 2012 Feb;61(2):248-54.

Beggs AD, Hodgson SV et al. Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome: Systematic review and management recommendations. Gut 2010;59:975-986