Dr Simon Bomken

Biography

MRC Clinician Scientist & Honorary Consultant, Newcastle University 

I am an MRC Clinician Scientist and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Oncologist, providing a clinical service for young people with lymphoma or Langerhans cell histiocytosis at the Great North Children’s Hospital, Newcastle. 
 

More about Dr Bomken

Qualifications

2015 CCT Paediatrics (Paediatric Oncology)

2013 PhD, Newcastle University

2005 Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, UK

2002 MBBS (Hons), Newcastle University

1999 BMedSci (Hons), Newcastle University  

Memberships

Children’s Cancer & Leukaemia Group (CCLG) NHL Interest Group Chair

European Hematology Association Pediatric Scientific Working Group

European Intergroup Collaboration for Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (EICNHL)/SIOPE

International BFM Study Group – Genetic variation task force

NCRI Children’s NHL subgroup

NCRI Lymphoma Science subgroup 

Honours and Awards

2014    Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting alumnus, Royal Society nominee

2002    Mona McNaughton Prize – MBBS (Hons) final examination results 2002

1998    Wolfson Scholar – BMedSci (Hons) 

Research Interests

Together with Dr Chris Bacon I run the Lymphoma Research Group within the Wolfson Childhood Cancer Research Centre and collaborate closely with Prof Vikki Rand at the National Horizon’s Centre, Teesside University. Our aim is to deeply characterise paediatric B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma to provide a comprehensive understanding of disease initiation and evolution in response to therapy. My particular interests include understanding the molecular drivers of therapy resistance and the role that clonal evolution has to play in this clinically important phenomenon. Using sporadic Burkitt lymphoma as our principle disease, we are studying the genetic, transcriptomic and clonal changes which occur in response to therapeutic pressure within patient-derived xenograft models.  Through understanding the drivers of clonal evolution we want to be able to predict patients more likely to develop therapy resistance and develop treatment strategies to target key resistance mechanisms. 

I also work closely with UK and European colleagues (iBFM, EICNHL, ESID) to develop our understanding of development of lymphoid malignancy in children with inherited immune deficiency or DNA repair disorders and provide the paediatric clinical service for Langerhans cell histiocytosis and collaborate with Newcastle Human Dendritic Cell Laboratory run by Professor Matt Collin.