Jo Tod MBBS, BSc, PhD

Dr Jo Tod, Academic Clinical Lecturer at the University of Southampton

Jo Tod graduated from Imperial College School of Medicine, London, in 2004 with MBBS Honours and a 1^st class BSc. She undertook her Core Medical Training in Southampton before acquiring a National Training Number in Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and is currently in her third year as a Specialist Registrar. University Hospital Southampton is a national centre for pancreatic diseases and whilst training there Jo developed an interest in pancreatic cancer. In 2011 she was awarded an MRC Clinical Training Fellowship to undertake a PhD studying molecular mechanisms of invasion in pancreatic cancer (PC) under the supervision of Prof Gareth Thomas and Dr David Fine.

Jo has established a strong research foundation in pancreatic cancer. In addition to her PhD work she has generated a pancreatic tissue bank, and is leading a multi-centre European Pancreas2000 project to examine the tumour biology of long survivors of PC, for which she was awarded a Future Leaders Award from Pancreatic Cancer UK (£10,000). Her PhD was awarded in 2014 and her results have been presented at local, national and international conferences and have won several prizes and awards. Manuscripts for this work are being prepared for publication.

Jo has recently been appointed as an Academic Clinical Lecturer at the University of Southampton, a post that allows her to continue building on this platform of pancreatic research whilst completing her clinical training to become a consultant. In September 2014 she was awarded a Medical Research Grant from Grant Charity/Pancreatic Cancer UK (£47,000) to fund ongoing investigations into mechanisms of PC invasion. Jo’s ultimate aim is to obtain a Clinician Scientist Fellowship in order to run her own lab-based research team, addressing important clinical problems, combined with clinical practice.