Rate My Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald

Rebecca Fitzgerald is Professor of Cancer Prevention at the University of Cambridge, Head of the Department of Oncology, and Director of the Early Cancer Institute. She is also Director of Studies in Medicine and Fellow in Medical Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, and serves as Honorary Consultant in Gastroenterology at Cambridge University Hospitals. She studied medicine at the University of Cambridge and obtained her MD in 1997 after research at Stanford University. Her postdoctoral training occurred at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry under an MRC Clinician Scientist award, after which she returned to Cambridge in 2001.

Her research focuses on the early detection of oesophageal cancer, including the development of the Cytosponge technology for Barrett’s oesophagus. She has received numerous honours, including an OBE, election as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2013 and the Royal Society in 2024, the Westminster medal, an NHS Innovation prize, the BMJ Gastro team of the year award, a Lister Prize Fellowship, an NIHR Research Professorship, the Jane Wardle Prevention and Early Diagnosis Prize, and the Don Listwin Award. Key publications include work in Nature (2023), The Lancet (2020 and 2022), Science (2021), and Nature Medicine (2020 and 2021). She contributes to teaching and clinical translation of research findings.