Rebecca Fitzgerald

Rebecca Clare Fitzgerald OBE FRS FMedSci (born September 1968) is a British medical researcher whose work focuses on understanding the evolution of cancer to find new ways to detect and prevent cancer. She has focused on oesophageal cancer which is an ideal opportunity to study how cancer evolves due to the accessibility of the tissue for detailed studies over time ^[1][2][3]. Fitzgerald has taken her work on understanding pathogenesis through to clinical translation.

Fitzgerald is a tenured Professor of Cancer Prevention and is the founding Director at the Early Cancer Institute of the University of Cambridge.^[4][5][6] She is an Honorary Consultant in Gastroenterology and Cancer Medicine at Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital.^[3][6] She is the leader of the CRUK Cambridge Centre Early Detection Programme and Cambridge lead for the CRUK Alliance of Cancer Early Detection (ACED).^[7] Fitzgerald is a Fellow and the Director of Medical Studies for Trinity College, Cambridge.

Fitzgerald is a co-founder of Cyted Medical https://www.cytedhealth.com/ to bring the non-endoscopic capsule sponge technology combined with laboratory tests into the clinic to improve outcomes for patients ^[8]

Education[edit]

Fitzgerald received a Master of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in Medicine from the University of Cambridge where she was an undergraduate student of Girton College, Cambridge in 1992. In 1997, she completed an Doctor of Medicine at Stanford University under the guidance of George Triadafilopoulos.^[3]

Career and research[edit]

Fitzgerald's postdoctoral work took place at the Department of Adult and Paediatric Gastroenterology at St Bartholomew's Hospital and at The Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, where she was supervised by Michael Farthing and funded by an MRC Clinical Scientist award.^[3] Fitzgerald moved to Cambridge to seart her independent research group in 2001 when she worked under the mentorship of Bruce Ponder FRS FMedSci and Ron Laskey FRS.

In 2004, Fitzgerald and her group developed Cytosponge, a novel screening test for Barrett's oesophagus, a common precursor to the often deadly cancer oesophageal adenocarcinoma.^[9] Cytosponge consists of a pill-sized capsule that contains a sponge, and is attached to a string. The capsule is swallowed, which expands into a sponge in the stomach. The sponge is then pulled out by the string, collecting cells from the oesophageal wall along the way.^[5] Subsequent biological analysis of the collected cells determines whether a patient has Barrett's.^[10] Cytosponge and subsequent capsule sponge technology designs have been praised for its minimally invasive, economical design compared to the current standard for identifying Barrett's oesophagus, the endoscopy.^[11][9] The results of the BEST3 trial were published in The Lancet in summer 2020 showing that the Cytosponge-TFF3 test can identify ten times more people with Barrett's oesophagus than current GP care.^[12] The procedure is now implemented in the NHS with trials ongoing in Europe and US. A fourth major clinical trial BEST4 will enroll 120,000 patients to determine whether this test could reduce morbidity and mortality from oesophageal cancer is rolled out as a pro-active, population based Screening Programme.

In 2022 Fitzgerald led a review of cancer screening for the European Commission that led to new screening policy for EU member states https://scientificadvice.eu/advice/improving-cancer-screening-in-the-european-union/

Honours and awards[edit]

In recognition of her work on Cytosponge and the early treatment of Barrett's oesophagus, Fitzgerald was awarded the Westminster Medal in 2004. In 2008, she was the recipient of a Lister Prize Fellowship, and in 2008 she received an NHS Innovation Prize. In 2013, Fitzgerald won a Research Professorship at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for her work.^[3]

The Royal College of Physicians appointed Fitzgerald as its Goulstonian Lecture. She was also awarded the British Society of Gastroenterology's Sir Francis Avery Jones Award. In 2018, Fitzgerald was awarded the Jane Wardle Prevention and Early Diagnosis prize, which recognises individuals who have produced world-leading research in the field of prevention and early detection of cancer.^[13]. In 2024 Fitzgerald was awarded the Morton Grossman Prize Lecturer by the American Gastroenterology Association. In 2021 Fitzgerald was elected a member of https://www.embo.org/ and in 2022 elected Member of https://www.ae-info.org/. In 2022 she was awarded the Don Listwin early detection award.

Fitzgerald was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to cancer research.^[14] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2024.^[15]

References[edit]