Dr Yuk Ting Ma MBChB (hons), MRCP, PhD

Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy
Senior Clinical Lecturer in Hepatobiliary Oncology

Contact details

Address
Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy
College of Medicine and Health
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Yuk Ting Ma is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Hepatobiliary Oncology in the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy and an Honorary Consultant in Hepatobiliary Oncology at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust.

Her research is focussed on understanding how epigenetic therapies may be used to reverse resistance to chemotherapy and also in understanding the immune responses following treatment in hepatobiliary cancers.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Birmingham - 2011
  • MRCP (UK) - 2003
  • MBChB (hons), University of Birmingham - 2000

Biography

Yuk Ting studied Medicine at the University of Birmingham, graduating with honours in 2000. She undertook general medical training in Birmingham gaining Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians in 2003. She then undertook specialist training in Medical Oncology in the West Midlands region and was awarded a CRUK Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2005.

Her PhD investigating smoking- and viral-induced epigenetic changes in cervical epithelia was supervised by Professor Paul Murray and the late Professor Ciaran Woodman, in the University of Birmingham. In 2012, Yuk Ting was appointed as a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Hepatobliary Oncology at the University of Birmingham, and as an Honorary Consultant in Hepatobiliary Oncology at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust.

Teaching

  • MSc in Clinical Oncology
    • Clinical Lead
    • Cancer Therapy and Management Module
  • BSc Biomedical Sciences
    • Cancer and Stratified Medicine Module
    • Cancer Pathogenesis and Treatment Module
    • New Targets and Drugs in Cancer Therapy Module
  • MBChB - undergraduate teaching

Postgraduate supervision

Yuk Ting has supervised the laboratory projects of a number of BMedSci students

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Dr Yuk Ting Ma directly, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research programme listings.

Research

The development of resistance to cytotoxic or targeted therapy in a cancer patient greatly limits the effectiveness of available anticancer therapies. A variety of mechanisms of resistance have been identified including enhanced drug metabolism, drug efflux from cancer cells and activation of alternative survival pathways. Recently dynamic chromatin modifications have been identified as a key determinant in the maintenance of subpopulations of cancer cells with high-level resistance to cytotoxic therapy. Dr Ma’s research focuses on understanding how epigenetic drugs may be used to reverse chemotherapy resistance.

Recent experimental studies have also shown that epigenetic drugs can have potent immunomodulating effects and Yuk Ting is also studying the immune responses in patients following treatment, and ultimately whether this may be modulated with epigenetic drugs.

Other activities

  • Member of the NCRI Upper GI CSG

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Peck-Radosavljevic, M, Abdelgafur, A, Granito, A, Gasbarrini, A, Ma, YT, Mena, E, Lledó-Navarro, JL, Presa, J, Weinmann, A, Levy, MT, Pellicelli, A, Waldschmidt, DT, Sørensen, HT, Goyal, L, Ren, M, Saal, H, Okpara, CE & Meyer, T 2026, 'An International Phase 4 Study of Lenvatinib and Sorafenib in Real-World Patients with Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Final Analysis', Liver Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1159/000552115

O'Rourke, JM, Kavanagh, D, O'Keeffe, A, Savoye, K, Yang, K, Patten, DA, Willoughby, CE, Llovet, JM, Neag, G, Reeves, HL, Hewett, PW, Kalia, N, Shah, T, Ma, YT, Hunter, K, Flint, J, McMurray, JL, Cain, O, Spill, F, Mann, DA, Naylor, AJ, Heath, V, Weston, CJ, Bicknell, R & Shetty, S 2026, 'CLEC14A correlates with neutrophil infiltration in hepatocellular carcinoma and mediates neutrophil recruitment across liver endothelial cells', Journal of Pathology. https://doi.org/10.1002/path.70077

Pancreatic Cancer Neoadjuvant Therapy Audit Collaborative, Alarabiyat, M, Rehman, S, Labib, PL, Powell-Brett, S, Hall, L, Edwards, D, Ma, YT, Sivakumar, S, Good, J, Raza, SS, Dasari, B, Marudanayagam, R, Bartlett, D, Roberts, KJ, Sutcliffe, R, Pathanki, A, Jahnsen, H, Suthananthan, A, Fong, C, Teng, MJ, Kaur, J, Candish, C, Elyan, S, Nagy, A, Baburaj, B, Bose, S, Khaja, MS, Tsalic, M, Hafeez, T, Joseph, M, Rashid, M, Kunene, V, Chatterjee, A, Tween, H, Asghar, S, Ferreira, A, Johnson, K, McDonald, C, Williams, A, Weir, K, Jones, G, Boyle, S, toby Mullett, M, Hart, R, Riddell, M, King, S, Bullock, C, Jones, L & Chatzizacharias, N 2026, 'Intention to treat outcomes following management of locally advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with curative intent: single centre cohort study', HPB, vol. 28, no. 9, pp. 1250-1264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hpb.2026.06.008

Kudo, M, Vogel, A, Evans, TRJ, Ma, YT, Daniele, B, Baron, AD, Mahipal, A, Qin, S, Blanc, J-F, Lopez, CL, Cheng, A-L, Choo, SP, Piscaglia, F, Mody, K, Ren, M & Chan, SL 2026, 'Lenvatinib versus Sorafenib in First-Line Treatment of Older Patients with Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Subgroup Analysis of the REFLECT Trial', Liver Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1159/000553375

Yuan-Doré, JSJ, Rashid, M, Ueshima, K, Lopes, A, Ma, YT, Ross, P, Palmer, D, Kudo, M & Meyer, T 2026, 'Pattern of progression and post-progression survival following transarterial embolisation: An analysis of the TACE-2 and TACTICS trials', JHEP Reports, vol. 8, no. 5, 101791. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhepr.2026.101791

Advanced Biliary Cancer (ABC) Working Group 2026, 'Prognostic markers, quality of life (QoL) and value of health (V-He) in advanced biliary cancers (ABC) treated with second-line active symptom control (ASC) alone or ASC with oxaliplatin–5-FU chemotherapy (ASC + FOLFOX) in the randomised phase III, multicentre, open-label ABC-06 clinical trial', ESMO Open, vol. 11, no. 7, 107777. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esmoop.2026.107777

Clarke, G, Dhanaraj, S, Hull, D, Panton, M, Mergental, H, Afford, SC, Shetty, S, Karkhanis, S, Mehrzad, H, Ma, YT, Punia, P, Shah, T & Dasari, BVM 2026, 'Safety and feasibility of liver maximum capacity assessment in patients undergoing transarterial chemoembolisation for hepatocellular carcinoma', Scientific Reports, vol. 16, 8014. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-23968-y

Vrana, E, Timmins, H, Osborne, A, Cox, R, Wasan, H, Ma, YT, Arora, A, Faluyi, O, Gillmore, R, Corrie, P, Miller, P, Arif, S, Canham, J, Martin, C, Riaz, M, Shi, T, Frizziero, M, Foy, V, Hubner, RA, Morement, H, Bridgewater, J, Adams, R, Valle, JW & McNamara, MG 2025, 'ABC-12: exploring the microbiome in patients with advanced biliary tract cancer in a first-line study of durvalumab (MEDI4736) in combination with cisplatin/gemcitabine', Future Oncology, vol. 21, no. 21, pp. 2713-2721. https://doi.org/10.1080/14796694.2025.2539018

Ma, YT, Zuo, J, Kirkham, A, Curbishley, S, Blahova, M, Rowe, AL, Bathurst, C, Mehrzad, H, Karkhanis, S, Punia, P, James, MW, Stern, N, Rao, A, Hull, D, Lowe, F, Sylla, P, Webster, L, Hussain, S, Yap, C, Palmer, D & Adams, DH 2025, 'Addition of Dendritic Cell Vaccination to Conditioning Cyclophosphamide and Chemoembolization in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma: The ImmunoTACE Trial', Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, vol. 31, no. 16, pp. 3412-3423. https://doi.org/10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-25-0142

Palmer, DH, Jackson, R, Springfeld, C, Ghaneh, P, Rawcliffe, C, Halloran, CM, Faluyi, O, Cunningham, D, Wadsley, J, Darby, S, Meyer, T, Gillmore, R, Lind, P, Glimelius, B, Falk, S, Ma, YT, Middleton, GW, Cummins, S, Ross, PJ, Wasan, H, McDonald, A, Crosby, T, Hammel, P, Borg, D, Sothi, S, Valle, JW, Mehrabi, A, Bailey, P, Tjaden, C, Michalski, C, Hackert, T, Büchler, MW & Neoptolemos, JP 2025, 'Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma: Long-Term Outcomes of Adjuvant Therapy in the ESPAC4 Phase III Trial', Journal of Clinical Oncology , vol. 43, no. 10, pp. 1240-1253. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.24.01118

Daniels, H, Hassan, M, Babiker, O, Rowley, W, Qaisar, A, Phillips, E, Griffin, E, Bell, C, Baraka, B, Acharige, S, Aquino, M, Plant, R, Mencel, J, Chan, S, Parslow, D, Arora, A, Scott-Brown, M, Khakoo, S, Braconi, C, Palmer, D, Ma, YT & Sivakumar, S 2025, 'UK Real-World Evidence of Using Durvalumab Plus Cisplatin and Gemcitabine in Advanced Biliary Tract Cancer via an Early Access Scheme', Cancers, vol. 17, no. 17, 2732. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers17172732

Rannikko, JH, Verlingue, L, De miguel, M, Pasanen, A, Robbrecht, D, Skytta, T, Iivanainen, S, Shetty, S, Ma, YT, Graham, DM, Arora, SP, Jaakkola, P, Yap, C, Xiang, Y, Mandelin, J, Karvonen, MK, Jalkanen, J, Karaman, S, Koivunen, JP, Minchom, A, Hollmén, M & Bono, P 2023, 'Bexmarilimab-induced macrophage activation leads to treatment benefit in solid tumors: The phase I/II first-in-human MATINS trial', Cell Reports Medicine, vol. 4, no. 12, 101307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2023.101307

Ghaneh, P, Palmer, D, Cicconi, S, Jackson, R, Halloran, CM, Rawcliffe, C, Sripadam, R, Mukherjee, S, Soonawalla, Z, Wadsley, J, Al-Mukhtar, A, Dickson, E, Graham, J, Jiao, L, Wasan, HS, Tait, IS, Prachalias, A, Ross, P, Valle, JW, O'Reilly, DA, Al-Sarireh, B, Gwynne, S, Ahmed, I, Connolly, K, Yim, K-L, Cunningham, D, Armstrong, T, Archer, C, Roberts, K, Ma, YT, Springfeld, C, Tjaden, C, Hackert, T, Büchler, MW & Neoptolemos, JP 2023, 'Immediate surgery compared with short-course neoadjuvant gemcitabine plus capecitabine, FOLFIRINOX, or chemoradiotherapy in patients with borderline resectable pancreatic cancer (ESPAC5): a four-arm, multicentre, randomised, phase 2 trial', The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 157-168. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(22)00348-X

Mosconi, C, O’Rourke, J, Kloeckner, R, Sturm, L, Golfieri, R, Celsa, C, Fateen, W, Odisio, BC, Garanzini, EM, Peck-Radosavljevic, M, Borghi, A, Ma, YT, Stoehr, F, Bettinger, D, Giuffrida, P, Aithal, GP, Lin, Y-M, Spreafico, C, Giampalma, E, Johnson, P & Cucchetti, A 2023, 'Textbook Outcome After Trans-arterial Chemoembolization for Hepatocellular Carcinoma', Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 449-459. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00270-023-03375-4

Review article

Lawson, A, Kamarajah, SK, Parente, A, Pufal, K, Sundareyan, R, Pawlik, TM, Ma, YT, Shah, T, Kharkhanis, S, Dasari, BVM & Sahin, I (ed.) 2023, 'Outcomes of Transarterial Embolisation (TAE) vs. Transarterial Chemoembolisation (TACE) for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis', Cancers, vol. 15, no. 12, 3166. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15123166

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