Diana Eccles MBChB, MD, FRCP

professor Diana Eccles is Dean of Medicine and is also Professor of Cancer Genetics at the University of Southampton. Professor Eccles has been Chair of Cancer Genetics since 2004. She graduated from Manchester University in 1983 and has trained in Manchester, Edinburgh and Southampton. After training in general medicine, then specialist training in adult oncology she worked on the molecular genetics of ovarian cancer in the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh to gain her MD in 1992. She then moved to Southampton to a research post in Genetic Epidemiology simultaneously training in Clinical Genetics and when appointed to a consultant post in Southampton in 1995 she set up one of the first NHS funded Cancer Genetics Services in the UK within the Wessex Clinical Genetics Service.

Professor Eccles is the Chief Investigator for a large national cohort study (the Prospective study of Outcomes in Sporadic versus Hereditary breast cancer). This study has recruited over 3000 women with breast cancer diagnosed before 41 years of age and provides material for studies investigating the role of inherited genetic mutation in breast cancer risk and prognosis. She is PI for a number of other clinical studies that broadly aim to improve diagnosis or management of genetic predisposition to cancer and incorporates cancer prevention studies.