We are delighted to share that Dr Sophia Varadkar and Dr Angela George have been appointed as joint Medical Director for the North Thames Genomic Laboratory Hub (NT-GLH) and the North Thames Genomics Medicine Service (NT-GMS).
June 19, 2023
Sanjiv Sharma, Chief Medical Officer for Great Ormond Street and Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for the NT-GLH; and Simon Barton, Medical Director for Specialised Commissioning, London Region and SRO for the NT-GMSA said:
“We are absolutely delighted that both Sophia and Angela will be joining us the joint Medical Directors for the North Thames Genomic Laboratory Hub and North Thames Genomics Medicines Service to support the collaboration across these two services. They are both highly experienced senior medical leaders and bring a wealth of expertise to this role.”
Both Sophia and Angela will take up their new role on 7th August.
Dr Angela George is a Consultant Medical Oncologist and Consultant in Oncogenetics at the Royal Marsden Hospital. She specialises in the systemic treatment of gynaecological cancers and has a particular focus on the use of genomic information in treatment. She is also Clinical Director of Genomics at the Royal Marsden, overseeing the Centre for Molecular Pathology, and undertakes testing for inherited cancer syndromes in her Oncogenetics practice.
Dr George trained initially in New Zealand in Medical Oncology, before moving to the Royal Marsden and undertaking additional training in Oncogenetics at the Institute of Cancer Research, where she was awarded the Chairman’s Prize for her Thesis in Ovarian Cancer Genetics. She led the implementation of the Mainstreaming Cancer Genetics programme, which involved incorporating genetic testing into the routine care of patients with ovarian, breast and pancreatic cancers. These programmes have now been adopted across the UK and Dr George has helped set these programmes up across the world, expanding into multiple tumour types and revolutionising the use of routine genomic information in cancer management. She currently runs several programmes investigating the role of molecular profiling in cancer management and holds a number of grants for research into molecular profiling, genomic screening, and the early detection of cancer in individuals with an inherited predisposition to cancer.
Dr George is involved in multiple national and international groups, including the National Cancer Research Institute Gynaecological Cancers Group, the Precision Medicine working group for the European Society of Medical Oncology and the British Society of Genetic Medicine. She was the Cancer Clinical Lead for the North Thames Genomic Medicine Service and co-chairs the molecular tumour board. She sits on the Clinical Advisory Group for the NHS England Genomics Unit and the NHSE Genomics Clinical Reference Group (CRG) and is on the UK Cancer Genetics Group steering committee.
Dr George has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and undertakes a variety of clinical and translational research, particularly in cancer genomics and targeted treatments. She is the principal investigator at The Royal Marsden for multiple international trials and chief investigator for a number of international trials.
Dr Sophia Varadkar is a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist and Deputy Medical Director at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust.
Sophia completed her undergraduate degree at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and her postgraduate medical training in Dublin and London. Her clinical work focuses on complex epilepsy, the Children’s Epilepsy Surgery Service, Vagus Nerve Stimulation Therapy (VNS) and Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy (LiTT). Genomics has become integral across her clinical work, and she has close working collaborations with clinical genetics.
Her clinical research training and PhD were laboratory-based in GOSH UCL Institute of Child Health. Since then, she has been site principle investigator and co-investigator on a number of clinical studies and is co-applicant on an NIHR Programme Grant: Transforming the mental health treatment of young people with epilepsy.
She has held senior clinical leadership roles at GOSH, in North Central London, North Thames and nationally. Currently Sophia sits on the NHS England Paediatric Neuroscience Clinical Reference Group, is Chair of the Steering Committee for the British Paediatric Neurology Association Paediatric Epilepsy Training Programme and is a Board member for the North Thames Paediatric Network. Previously she has been a Council Member of the International League Against Epilepsy British Branch, member of the RCPCH Epilepsy Programme Board and member of the NCL Ethics Advisory Committee. Sophia was honoured to be named the Women’s Network GOSH Inspirational Woman of the Year 2023.
Originally from Dublin, she lives in London since 1998 with her husband and two teenage children. Sophia loves cooking (and eating), almost all kinds of rock music and Sci Fi-fantasy. She is a school governor for a local primary school.
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