Nick James

Professor James is Professor of Prostate and Bladder Cancer Research at The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, London. He was previously Professor of Clinical Oncology in Birmingham until 2019. He is also an NIHR Emeritus Senior Investigator and Deputy Dean of The Institute of Cancer Research.

His research is focussed on advanced prostate cancer and on bladder preservation in locally advanced disease. Prof. James is Chief Investigator on the ground-breaking STAMPEDE trial, which has been used to evaluate 10 different therapies for advanced prostate cancer in around 12,000 men. The trial has shown that big survival gains can be made by using existing treatments in novel settings. STAMPEDE2 with 2 new comparisons has just begun recruiting with international collaboration in Switzerland, Germany, Spain and India with further country expansion planned including to Nigeria. 

He recently chaired a 4-year Lancet Commission on Prostate Cancer. Findings were published in April 2024 and take a 10-15 year global perspective on forthcoming issues in prostate cancer. Spin off projects based on the key findings are in set up in India, Nigeria and Brazil.

In the bladder cancer field, Prof James has led a series of trials of chemoradiotherapy that demonstrated that low dose synchronous chemotherapy reduced invasive bladder cancer relapse rates by 43%, defining chemoradiotherapy as the standard of care for bladder preservation.

Outside the clinical and research spheres, Prof James is closely engaged with patient education and health inequalities initiatives. He co-founded the trailblazing website CancerHelp UK in 1994. In 2002 it became the main patient resource on the Cancer Research UK website.  More recently, the “It's a Man Thing” initiative, including a series of music concerts, in collaboration with the world-famous saxophonist Courtney Pine raised around £500k and led to the Man Van outreach project. The project has offered health advice and testing for prostate cancer as well as other common conditions such as hypertension and diabetes in areas of high deprivation to 4000 men. Most recently, he has launched a national exercise initiative with world famous cyclist Sir Chris Hoy and the national gym chain PureGym. This is giving men with advanced prostate cancer free gym membership linked to a structured programme of exercise.