Speakers

Prof Gentry-Maharaj is based at the EGA Institute for Women’s Health and the Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology at UCL. 

At the EGA Institute for Women’s Health, Aleks is the Head of Research Department of Women’s Cancer, where she leads a group of clinicians, scientists, mathematicians and anthropologists whose focus is on early detection, risk prediction and prevention of breast and gynaecological cancers. Her own group, the Centre of Early Detection and Innovation (CEDI), works across disciplines to tackle the pressing challenges in prevention and early detection of women's cancers whilst in parallel addressing inequalities across gynaecological cancers. 

Main focus of her work has been on ovarian and endometrial cancer screening, genetic predisposition to ovarian cancer, biomarker discovery for ovarian, breast, colorectal and pancreatic cancer and, more recently, treatment trials using chemotherapy/targeted therapy agents or repurposed drugs such as aspirin. One key role was on the United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS), a randomised controlled trial involving 202,638 women and the largest of its kind.