James O'Connor
Name
James O'Connor
Job title
Professor of Radiology and Honorary Consultant Radiologist
Email Address
jessica.ward12@nhs.net
Phone number
0161 446 8542
Qualifications
MA (Cantab), MBBS (London), PhD (Manchester), FRCR (London)
Specialities
Radiology
Responsibilities
- Principal investigator on several pre-clinical and clinical cancer MRI studies
- University of Manchester MBBS interviewer
- Reviewer for over 20 leading peer reviewed science journals
- Grant reviewer for Cancer Research UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Medical Research Council and several international bodies.
Professional biography
Professor O’Connor studied medicine at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he obtained an MA in Ethics and the History and Philosophy of Science in 1995. He then undertook clinical studies at the Royal Free Hospital, London with an MBBS in 1998.
Professor O’Connor joined the Manchester Radiology Training Scheme in 2004 and obtained CCT in 2009. He joined the Imaging Sciences department at The University of Manchester in 2005 and was awarded his PhD thesis in 2009. In this work, he studied how advanced image analysis could best quantify response to therapy in patients treated with angiogenesis inhibitors. He completed postdoctoral research in the laboratories of Professor Alan Jackson and Professor Geoff Parker at The University of Manchester, and was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2012, Reader in 2017 and Professor of Radiology in 2018.
Professor O’Connor was awarded a Cancer Research UK Advanced Clinician Scientist Fellowship in 2017. He joined the ICR in 2020 as Group Leader in Quantitative Biomedical Imaging within the Division of Radiotherapy and Imaging. Professor O’Connor develops and validates novel imaging biomarkers for decision making in both preclinical models and early phase clinical studies of novel therapies or novel combinations. Part of this work employs mathematical modelling of data to optimize use of imaging in drug development.
As an international leader in his field, Professor O’Connor led the EORTC and Cancer Research UK consensus statement on imaging biomarker validation, which has provided a roadmap for translating imaging biomarkers to benefit patient care throughout the world. He serves on the Cancer Research UK Clinical Research Funding Scheme panel and various other European and North American advisory committees.