Birmingham lecturer elected president of British Gynaecological Cancer Society

Dr Sudha Sundar, a leading cancer expert has been named as president-elect of the prestigious British Gynaecological Cancer Society.

Sundar, the first female gynaecological oncologist to be elected to the prestigious post at the British Gynaecological Cancer Society (BGCS), is senior lecturer in Gynaecological Oncology at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences.

The surgeon-cum-academic is working with partners across India and Africa to establish matched cohort studies that will help investigate ethnic diversity in women's cancer genomics.

"This is an exciting time to be elected as president-elect of the BGCS; we have a vibrant multi-disciplinary society working together and engaging with patients. This is a real opportunity to improve outcomes for women with gynaecological cancer and I look forward to contributing to this," said Dr Sundar, who is the third BGCS president to be elected from the University of Birmingham.

The BGCS described itself as a society of professionals dedicated to improving the care provided to patients with gynaecological cancers.

It develops guidelines, advocates for advances in care, helps improve training and education for gynaecological cancer professionals and works in partnership with charities and patients.

In addition to her clinical and teaching work, Dr Sundar's research programme investigates clinical challenges in patients with ovarian and endometrial cancer, using a combined clinical trials and translational research approach, the University of Birmingham said.

She is chief investigator for the ROCKETS project, which aims to achieve earlier diagnosis of ovarian cancer a collaboration between international experts from KU Leuven (Netherlands), University College London and the University of Birmingham. Translational research in genomics, steroidomics, and metabolomics is also underway, the university added.

Dr Sundar is also leading the SOCQER 2 study, commissioned by the UK's National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which investigates surgical outcomes in advanced stage ovarian cancer in 15 cancer centres in the UK, India and Australia.

As cancer surgery work package lead for the NIHR global health research unit on Global Surgery, she is carrying out surgical research across sub-Saharan Africa, India and other countries.

Dr Sundar trained in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Oxford and in Gynaecological Oncology at the Three Counties cancer centre, Gloucestershire. Dr Sundar also trained in Molecular Oncology as a Cancer Research UK Clinical Fellow at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford.