Margaret Frame

Professor of Cancer Research. Director: Institute of Genetics and Cancer

Background

Margaret Frame is a biomedical research scientist with interests in novel cancer mechanisms, as evidenced by deep biology, imaging and new approaches to drug discovery and cancer therapeutics – work that has been funded by six successive CRUK (or predecessor charity) Programme grants, also by an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant and a recently funded CRUK/Brain Tumour Charity Brain Tumour Award (joint with colleagues in Edinburgh, Oxford and Boston (MIT)).

From 2002-2007, Margaret was Deputy Director of the CRUK Beatson Institute in Glasgow, after which she moved to the University of Edinburgh (UoE). She is Professor of Cancer Research, Director of the CRUK Edinburgh Centre and Director of the Institute of Genetics and Cancer. Margaret is very active in supporting the careers of early- and mid-stage researchers (the Institute of Genetics and Cancer has 25 early-career Chancellor’s Fellows, 21 of whom have won personal fellowships or substantial grant funding). She supports early career researchers, both clinical and non- clinical, a passion that stems from her time as Chairman of the CRUK New Investigator Panel and Dean of Research in the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine (UoE), and from her own experiences when building a research career during the ‘young family’ years (now 3 adult sons). She is currently co-Chair of the Academy of Medical Sciences Careers Committee and member of Lister Institute Scientific Advisory Committee, a Wellcome Trust Expert Review Group, an ERC Funding Panel, and serves as Chair, or member, of several international scientific advisory boards (SABs), including for the CRUK Barts Centre, the CRUK Therapeutic Discovery Laboratories and the Beatson Institute SAB (Chair).

Margaret was awarded the Tenovus Medal in 1999, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002, an EMBO Member in 2007 and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2009. She was awarded the Chancellor’s prize for Research - presented by HRH The Princess Royal (the Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh) - and gave the Tom Connors Lecture at NCRI (both in 2015). She recently served as President of the British Association for Cancer Research (until 2019), Chaired the 2018 National (UK) Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) meeting and will Chair the new CRUK/AACR Post-doctoral Fellowship scheme. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Honours List in 2018 for services to cancer research.

Margaret will step down as Science Director of the CRUK Edinburgh Centre (after 12 years) early in 2020, but will continue as Director of the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, with her own research, as Lead for the Edinburgh-UCL Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence and with her many external roles.