Ruth Plummer, MD

Ruth Plummer is Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine, Newcastle University and an honorary consultant medical oncologist in Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK.  She directs the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre.

In September 2025 she additionally took up the role of National Clinical Lead for Cancer Drugs for NHS England.

The focus of her research is first-in-human clinical trials, including studies with novel small molecules, antibodies, immunotherapies and cellular therapies.  She developed the pivotal trials for the first-in-class PARP and ATR inhibitors.  She has sat on multiple on grant funding committees including chairing the MRC Experimental Medicine Panel and CRUK New Agents Committee.

She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2018 for her work developing PARP inhibitors. In 2021 she was awarded the ESMO-TAT Lifetime Achievement award and in 2022 an MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours for Services to Medicine.