Ruth Plummer, FMedSci, MD, PhD, is Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University and an Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology in Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.  She leads the Newcastle Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and also the CRUK Newcastle Cancer Centre. She runs a phase I all-comers practice, taking responsibility for one of the most active phase I unit’s in the UK. Her research interests are in the field of DNA repair and early phase clinical trials of novel agents, taking the first in class PARP inhibitor into the clinic in 2003, ATR inhibitor in 2012 and MCT1 inhibitor in 2014. Her work contributed to the development and validation of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic assays in early clinical drug development, assays that are now embedded in early phase trial design.