Meet our Charity Advisors
Professor Andy Pearson
Strategic Advisor to the Board (Honorary)
Professor Andy Pearson is formerly a Cancer Research UK Professor of Paediatric Oncology, at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Trust.
During a long and distinguished career, he helped establish and lead many key groups in the paediatric oncology landscape both nationally and internationally. Professor Pearson authored the first international guidelines for the conduct of Phase I trials in children with cancer and led the first paediatric Phase I study in the UK. He was the founding Chair of the International Society for Paediatric Oncology Europe Neuroblastoma Committee (SIOPEN) and founding chair with Sue Cohn of the International Neuroblastoma Risk Group consortium.(INRG).He was the Chief Investigator of the BEACON Trial - the first-ever randomised European study for children with refractory/relapsed neuroblastoma.
He has held many international positions of influence including Executive membership of the Innovative Therapy for Children with Cancer Consortium (ITCC), Board membership of SIOPEN, Senior Advisor of ACCELERATE and LifeArc Childhood Cancer Chair. He has published over 400 scientific manuscripts.
He retired from clinical practice in May 2014 due to ill health. Professor Pearson is an eminent figure in the fields of drug development and neuroblastoma research and was awarded a Life Time Achievement Award from Advances in Neuroblastoma Research in 2016.
Professor Pearson has been instrumental in establishing our Scientific Advisory Board and is an advocate at every level for children affected by neuroblastoma.
Professor Juliet Gray
Clinical Advisor (Honorary)
Juliet is a Professor of Paediatric Oncology at the Cancer Immunology Centre, University of Southampton and the clinical lead of the regional Paediatric Oncology unit at Southampton Children's Hospital. She leads a translational research group focused on novel antibody immunotherapies for neuroblastoma, including preclinical evaluation of novel combinational therapies as well as early-phase clinical trials. Her specific research interest is in improving the efficacy and reducing the toxicity of anti-GD2 monoclonal antibody therapies. She has developed the laboratory support and immune endpoint assays within the Southampton Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre, required to support early phase immunotherapy studies.
Juliet has led a number of international neuroblastoma trials. She is the Chief Investigator of the BEACON-2 trial for relapsed neuroblastoma, and also led the MINIVAN trial, a transatlantic Phase I trial testing the combination of targeted radiation therapy (131-I mIBG) and two immunotherapies (Nivolumab and dinutuximab beta) in children and young people with relapsed or refractory neuroblastoma.
Juliet plays a key role in both UK and European neuroblastoma research. She chairs the UKCCCR Neuroblastoma group and is Vice President, and chair of the Clinical Trials Committee, of the European Neuroblastoma Research Network (SIOPEN).
Professor Pam Kearns
IMPACCT Chair
Pam Kearns is Emeritus Professor of Paediatric Oncology at the University of Birmingham, Director of Birmingham’s Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit 2011-2023 and Director of its Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences 2021-2024. She is President of ITCC, Board member for ACCELERATE, Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees for Cancer Research UK and Chair of Solving Kids' Cancer UK’s IMPACCT (Initiative for Multi-stakeholder Partnership to Accelerate Children’s Cancer Trials). She chairs the Research Assessment Panel for Great Ormond Street Hospital, is a member of UK’s National Institute for Health Research Invention for Innovation Funding Committee and several other (inter)national academic advisory boards.
Pam brings her extensive experience and expertise on academic clinical trials to IMPACCT, and has been a crucial pillar to the initiative and it's success to date.