Her clinical practice involves leading on the systemic therapies for skin cancer, with a portfolio of trials across all phases of drug development. In addition 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.

This research is either based in the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre or in the Newcastle University Centre for Cancer of which she is a deputy director. Nationally she chairs the MRC Ex[erimenatal Medicine Panel, and sits as a member of Cancer Research UK’s Clinical Research Committee and Research Careers Committee. She is a also member of the MRC Precision Medicine Group and the NIHR EME Committee.

She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2018 for her work developing PARP inhibitors as novel cancer treatments and in 2021 she was awarded the ESMO-TAT Lifetine Acheivement award for her work is early phase trials. In 2022 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Jubilee honours for services to medicine