Catharine West

Honorary Member 2023

Catharine West is Professor Emerita of Radiation Biology at the University of Manchester. After obtaining a BA in Biology from York University in 1978, she obtained her PhD in radiobiology in 1983 at the Institute for Cancer Research in Sutton. Then, following postdoctoral work at the University of Rochester Cancer Centre in the United States, she moved to Manchester and joined the radiobiology group led by Jolyon Hendry. Her work focuses on measuring radiobiologically relevant phenotypes in cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy with a particular interest in radiosensitivity and hypoxia.

She has served on many committees and several editorial boards, led/co-led consortiums (RAPPER, Radiogenomics, REQUITE) and has >350 publications. Her membership of the Association for Radiation Research started in 1986 and she served as a committee member from 1992-1995 and again from 2004-2010. She was awarded the Weiss medal in 2016, the Bacq and Alexander Award in 2017, was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists in 2019 and received an ESTRO Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.

Following retirement in January 2023, she continues to teach radiobiology to radiation oncology trainees in India, and serves on several Scientific Advisory Boards. She has had a career lifetime commitment to radiobiology, taught radiobiology to numerous Clinical Oncology trainees and secured funding of >£100M as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator. She is married with three children and worked part-time in the middle of her career.

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