Professor Justin Stebbing

BM BCh MA (Oxon) FRCP FRCPath PhD

Professor Justin Stebbing is a Professor of Biomedical Sciences at ARU, Cambridge. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene and a visiting Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology at Imperial College. Professor Stebbing specialises in a range of malignancies, their treatment with immunotherapy (breast, GI, lung, and clinical trials), and linking the laboratory to the clinic via translational research.  Professor Stebbing was also the NIHR’s first research translational Professor of Oncology.

Professor Justin Stebing’s track record as a clinician scientist has led to more than 650 peer-reviewed papers, more than 50 of which have appeared in journals with an impact factor exceeding 10, the vast majority as first or last author (current H-score on Google Scholar = 90).

Professor Steebing originally studied medicine at Trinity College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree before moving to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA then returning to complete training at the Royal Marsden and St Barts Hospitals. In 2007 he was appointed a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London and a Consultant Oncologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, then a Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology in 2009.

The nature of Professor Stebbing scientific contributions and international leadership in translational research were recognised by being awarded the NIHR’s first research translational professorship, becoming Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene – Springer Nature’s cancer journal – and elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was also Chair of the Irish Cancer Society and a national charity, Action Against Cancer, was set up to support his research.

Professor Stebbing originally commenced his translational research career investigating the link between immunology, tumours and viruses, establishing mechanisms of non-progression in disease such as HIV-1. He extended this to cancer, showing how antiretrovirals worked to prevent tumorigenesis at both an individual level and in large cohorts. This occurred as soon as he arrived back in the UK following his residency program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and he completed an MRC-funded PhD fellowship on the contribution of viruses and immunity to cancer and its eradication.

His papers on HIV-1 and antiretrovirals (as first or last author he published more than 150 on HIV/cancer, including 30 in journals with an impact factor exceeding 10), showed a reduction in mortality in AIDS-defining cancers and resolution of individual lesions.

Following this,  Professor Justin Stebbing turned his attention to solid cancers, and focused on drug development, non-coding RNAs, kinases and biomarkers. By way of one example, a team he led described for the first time a new gene, LMTK3 (published in Nature Medicine), and went on to establish its place in some of the most central tumorigenic pathways. We are now undertaking a drug-development program across malignancies. This is also designed to increase health and wealth of the nation, establish national/international collaborations and provide training/teaching for scientists, linking their work to the clinic.

In the last few years, work on this kinase alone has led to high impact factor papers as first or last author in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Gastroenterology, Cell Reports, Science Signaling, PNAS, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics and Genome Research, in differing models, to name a sample.

Professor Justin  Stebing has also been a Principal Investigator on a large number of clinical studies of novel/innovative compounds but also led the global development of a biosimilar (CT-P6) of the high value drug Herceptin, and it is now available to the developing world cheaply, ensuring equity in low- and middle-income countries.

There has been global media interest in this work over the years and he has been committed to communicating the excitement of biomedical science to lay audiences.

During the pandemic, Professor Justin Stebibg was motivated with his team to make a difference. Following his Lancet journal publications describing using AI to find a new drug in early 2020 (now cited thousands of times), he led many of the mechanistic, laboratory and global studies leading to baricitinib’s FDA approval in November 2020. The WHO has given it its highest evidence level. Baricitinib has the greatest mortality benefits of any drug in the pandemic for hospitalized patients with COVID-19. A book he wrote describing the story of its discovery, Witness to Covid, is widely available. It is testament to the broad utility of AI, teamwork and collaboration.

Recent papers Professor Stebbing has published bring down barriers between industry and academics. To give one example, a recent Science Advances paper he led includes 55 authors from 33 institutions in 12 countries. He was the senior author on an LMTK3 paper in the same issue of Science Advances. In 2023 Justin’s team published in Nature Communications the mutational landscape of the healthy breast which provides a normal reference breast genome, and helps understand the effects of age and pregnancy on mutations in normal cells.

Aligning with his CT-P6 biosimilar work which concerned equitable drug access, baricitinib for COVID-19 as a simple once/daily tablet with a short half-life, no drug-drug interactions, a low cost and few side effects, has lent itself for use in low- and middle-income countries, a key component of his work. He aims to make a difference to the quality and quantity of life of patients, and help turn cancer into a curable disease.

In 2024, Professor Justin Stebing led work on the first-in-human trials using invariant natural killer cells as a cell therapy in critically unwell patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, data also published in Nature Communications.

A new paper in Nature Medicine on which Professor Stebbig is co-corresponding author shows a new immunotherapy combination can induce durable responses in heavily pre-treated colon cancer. This is the first time that immunotherapy has been shown to consistently work in a cold tumour type.