Profile
Prof Rebecca FITZGERALD
Collaborator
Rebecca Fitzgerald is Professor of Cancer Prevention at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Early Cancer Institute. She still practises medicine as an Honorary Consultant in Gastroenterology at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge.
She studied Medicine at Cambridge University and gained her MD in 1997 following a period of research at Stanford University, California, with Professor George Triadafilopoulos. Her postdoctoral training took place at the Department of Adult and Paediatric Gastroenterology, St Barts and The Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry with Professor Michael Farthing, funded by an MRC Clinician Scientist award. She returned to Cambridge in 2001.
The focus of her research group is to improve methods for early detection of oesophageal cancer through better understanding of the molecular pathogenesis. Rebecca was awarded the prestigious Westminster medal and prize for her first proof-of-concept work on the Cytosponge™ and associated assays for diagnosing Barrett’s oesophagus in 2004. Since then this work has received an NHS Innovation prize (2011) and the BMJ Gastro team of the year award (2016). She received a Lister Prize Fellowship in 2008 and in 2013 was awarded an NIHR Research Professorship to facilitate translational research for patient benefit. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2013 and Fellow of the Royal Society in 2024. In 2018 she received the Jane Wardle Prevention and Early Diagnosis Prize, and in 2021 the Don Listwin Award for Outstanding Contribution to Cancer Early Detection.
Rebecca has a plethora of teaching experience and is a Member of the Institute of Learning and Teaching. She is Director of Medical Studies for Trinity College Cambridge, where she is involved with undergraduate and clinical teaching. She has a wealth of lecturing experience including radio broadcasts for BBC Radio 4 and ABC Radio Australia, Health of the Nation. Rebecca is committed to bringing research advances into clinical practice and inspiring other researchers to do likewise.
rcf29@cam.ac.uk
Cambridge
Collaborators
BloodCounts!
Research Interest
Key Publications
Google Scholar Link
Fitzgerald RC, Antonious AC, Fruk L, Rosenfeld N The future of early cancer detection Nature Medicine 28, 666-677 2022
Pilonis ND, Killcoyne S, Tan WK, O’Donovan M, Malhotra S, Tripathi M, Miremadi A, Debiram-Beecham I, Evans T, Phillips R, Morris DL, Vickery C, Harrison J, di Pietro M, Ortiz-Fernandez-Sordo J, Haidry R, Kerridge A, Sasieni PD, Fitzgerald RC. Use of a Cytosponge biomarker panel to prioritise endoscopic Barrett’s oesophagus surveillance: a cross-sectional study followed by a real-world prospective pilot. Lancet Oncology 2022 Epub ahead of print. DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(21)00667-7
Nowicki-Osuch K, Zhuang J, Jammula S, Vleaney CW, Mahbubani KT, Devonshire G, Katz-Summercorn A, Eliing N, Wilbrey-Clark A, Madissoon E, Gamble J, Di Pietro M, O’Dononvan M, Meyer KB, Saeb-Parsey K. Sharrocks A, Teichmann SA, Marioni JC, Fitzgerald RC. Molecular phenotyping reveals the identity of Barrett’s esophagus and its malignant transition Science 2021 373; 760-767 DOI:10.1126/SCIENCE.ABD1449
Nowicki-Osuch K, Zhuang J, Cheung TS, Black EL, Masque Soler N, Devonshire G, Redmond AM, Freeman A, di Pietro M, Pilonis N, Januszewicz, O’Donovan M, Tavare S, Shields JD, Fitzgerald RC Single-cell RNA sequencing unifies developmental programs of esophageal and gastric intestinal metaplasia. Cancer Discovery 13,(6); 1346-1363, 2023
Luebeck J, Ng AWT, Galipeau PC, Li X, Sanchez CA, Katz-Summercorn AC, Kim H, Jammula S, He Y, Lippman SM, Verhaak RGW, Maley CC, Alexandrov LB, Reid BJ, Fitzgerald RC, Paulson TG, Chang HY, Wu S, Bafna V, Mischel PS. Extrachromosomal DNA in the cancerous transformation of Barrett's oesophagus. Nature. 2023 616(7958):798-805. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05937-5. PMID: 37046089 Free PMC article. Joint last author
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Achievements
2024: Elected Hon fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
2024: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society
2022: Elected Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to cancer, Member of Academiae Europaeae, Cancer Research Horizons Innovation and Entrepreneurship Impact Award, Don Listwin Early Detection Award
2021: Elected Member of EMBO