Professor Fran Balkwill named in top 100 female scientists in the UK

On 21 October, Research.com released its first annual ranking of top female scientists in the world and Professor Fran Balkwill from Barts Cancer Institute (BCI), Queen Mary University of London, has been named as one of the top 100 female scientists in the UK. The aim of the ranking is to “inspire female scholars, women considering an academic career, as well as decision-makers worldwide with the example of successful women in the scientific community.”

Fran Balkwill is Professor of Cancer Biology and Deputy Centre Lead of BCI's Centre for Tumour Micronvironment. Her research focuses on the links between cancer and inflammation, with a particular focus on ovarian cancer, and she researches ways of translating this into treatments to test in clinical trials.

Professor Balkwill is also passionate about science communication, especially to young people. When she was unable to find a book about cells for her children, she decided to write one herself. She’s since published a number of children’s books on scientific topics. Her books have received a number of awards and in 2008, she was awarded an OBE for services to science communication to children.

She is Director of the Centre of the Cell, a unique informal biomedical science learning centre based at Queen Mary’s Whitechapel campus. Centre of the Cell is the first science education centre in the world to be located within working research laboratories. Since the opening in 2009, there have been over 225,000 primary and secondary school-age participants in its interactive science shows, workshops, digital experiences and youth engagement events.

She is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Along with Professor Balkwill, Queen Mary's Claudia Langenberg (Director of the Precision Health University Research Institute) and Irene Leigh (Professor of Cell and Molecular Medicine at the Institute of Dentistry) were also named in research.com’s top 100 female scientists in the UK.

Read the full Queen Mary news story.