Sheela Rao MBBS, MD, FRCP

Dr Rao has both a private and an NHS practice at The Royal Marsden. She is a Consultant Medical Oncologist specialising in the treatment of upper gastrointestinal (stomach and oesophagus) and hepatobiliary (pancreas, bile duct and liver) malignancies, colorectal (bowel) and neuroendocrine cancers, and cancers of unknown primary.

Dr Rao completed medical training at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, general medical training in London and specialist oncology training at The Royal Marsden.

She undertook laboratory-based research at The Institute of Cancer Research examining the prognostic and predictive value of genomic profiling of tumour biopsies in oesophago-gastric cancer. This work was supported by an academic grant and Dr Rao was awarded an MD in 2008.

She is The Royal Marsden's lead for cancers of unknown primary. Her main interests are the identification of new treatments and translational research for patients with gastrointestinal cancer.