About us.

Our trustees.

Co-founder and Chair

Yvonne’s diagnosis of stage IV, ALK+ lung cancer in August 2021 prompted her get involved in patient advocacy, particularly in research activism and funding. Her professional background is in corporate communications and over the past 30 years she has led communications at various leading global organisations helping to transform strategies into action, strengthen brands, drive business goals and support reputations.

Yvonne is also on the Board of Directors of ALK Positive Inc and a member of Lung Cancer Europe. She is a patient representative on CRUK/NIH-funded Cancer Grand Challenge’s Team CANCAN and is active in various areas to amplify the patient voice to improve the speed, quality and funding of research. She is also a former trustee of ALK+ International and served as Chair from Feb – Nov 2023.

Yvonne is also a mother to twin teen sons and a dog. She lives with her husband and family in London, UK.

Yvonne Diaz

Co-founder and Secretary

Jan works in the medical technology industry and lives outside Bristol, in the UK, with her husband and family. One of her four daughters, Amy was diagnosed by chance in March 2020 with ALK+ lung cancer at the age of 21.

As a concerned parent, Jan researched and came across some amazing and innovative ALK+ cancer treatments. However, many of these are inaccessible in the UK. This has inspired Jan to join up with like-minded lung cancer cancer advocates and help push for change.


Jan served as a Trustee and volunteer of ALK+ International from May 2022 – November 2023. She’s led fundraising for The Institute of Cancer Research and ALK Positive Inc to increase the research quality and improve outcomes for people living with oncogene-driven lung cancers. Jan attends major industry conferences like BTOG and ESMO.

Jan Clark

Trustee

Helen is a former registered nurse and has worked in both the UK and US, before moving into medical sales and later business management in the medical devices industry.

After a long successful career in the sector, in 2018, Helen diversified into managing a three-year National Lottery funded project in the Yorkshire area to combat social isolation and loneliness in the over 55s. In this project, she worked with various sectors of the NHS, charities and local community groups.

Helen was inspired to join Oncogene Cancer Research following the diagnosis of Amy Clark, the daughter of co-founder Jan Clark, following on from her long 30-year friendship with the family. Helen is keen to use her to knowledge, contacts and skills to support more medical research.

Helen is married and lives with her husband John in Portugal. She a stepmother to Sophie and works as a volunteer business consultant for a healthcare support agency in the Algarve.

Helen Tankard

Medical advisory board.

  • Professor Popat is a Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden, Professor of Thoracic Oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research, and is an internationally recognized expert in the treatment of lung cancer, mesothelioma and cancers of the thymus (thymoma and thymic carcinoma).

    Professor Popat qualified in 1994 from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals with triple distinction and was awarded a PhD in Molecular Genetics in 2002, undertaking a postdoctoral Clinician Scientist Fellowship and a HEFCE Clinical Senior Lectureship thereafter. He has been awarded nationally and internationally competitive prizes for his research, in addition to four research fellowships. His research interests include the complexities of genetic profiling in cancer, as well as developing novel drug treatments through clinical trials.

    He also holds several national and international roles. Nationally, Professor Popat Chairs the British Thoracic Oncology Group (BTOG) Steering Committee, is Co-Director for the NIHR London South Clinical Research Network Cancer Division, the NIHR Lung Cancer National Specialty Lead and is past Sub-group Chair of the NCRI Lung Group. Internationally, he sits on the Foundation Council of the European Thoracic Oncology Platform (ETOP) and is active in the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) where he has co-authored European Clinical Practice Guidelines for Small Cell Lung Cancer, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, and Mesothelioma. His research collaborations with industry have led to licensing of several drugs globally, leading to implementation in International treatment guidelines and NHS funding approvals.

    Professor Popat is often an invited Clinical Expert to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and sits on several committees overseeing the safety and governance for ongoing UK and international clinical trials. He is a strong advocate for patient education and support and is clinical advisor to several patient-facing cancer charities.

Consultant Medical Oncologist
BSc MBBS FRCP PhD

  • Professor Turner obtained her PhD from the world-renowned Paterson Institute for Cancer Research and the Christie Hospital in Manchester where she examined the potential toxic side-effects of chemoprotective gene therapy. This work was a collaborative effort with what was at that time the AstraZeneca Central Toxicology Labs at Alderley Edge.

    Following this training period Professor Turner moved to a research post at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge where under the guidance of Dr Denis Alexander she began to investigate mechanisms of Lymphomagenesis, a subject that she has pursued to become a world-expert in paediatric lymphomas, specifically Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL). Since 2005, Professor Turner has been leading an academic research group at the University of Cambridge within the Department of Pathology and based at the Addenbrooke’s Hospital campus in Cambridge. It is here that Professor Turner conducts academic research of an international standard and also teaches and examines aspects of the medical, veterinary and natural science tripos. Professor Turner is also director of teaching and deputy head of the Department of Pathology.

    In 2007, Professor Turner was awarded the prestigious Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research (LLR; now Blood Cancer UK) Bennett Fellowship and in 2012 a further 5-year LLR senior lectureship award. Amongst her achievements are the inception and establishment of the European Research Initiative on ALCL, a study group that brings together scientists from across Europe to foster collaboration and advancement in this important area of health research. Professor Turner was also the lead of ‘ALKATRAS’, a European Union Marie Curie Innovative Training Network of 14 research groups in 7 EU countries and is currently non-clinical chair of the European Inter-Group for Collaboration into Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (EICNHL), co-chair of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Cambridge Centre Paediatric Programme and biological lead for the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) paediatric lymphoma Clinical Study Group (CSG). Professor Turner collaborates with a wide array of scientists and labs around the world, most notably the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala with whom she is working towards finding better therapies for children with cancer.

    Amongst her other interests Professor Turner is the scientific advisor to the Alex Hulme Foundation and Francesca Richardson Trust. She is also a member of both the American and British Associations for Cancer Research (BACR/AACR), the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG) in the UK and the International Society for Paediatric Oncology (SIOP). Professor Turner also sits on the scientific committee of SIOP, the MHRA plastics, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery (PRASEAG) committee and the European Commission’s Scientific committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) working group on breast implants and cancer. In addition, she is a member of the international grant review panels of the World Cancer Research Fund and the Swedish Research Council’s medicine and health review panel.

University of Cambridge
Chair, CRUK Cambridge Centre Paediatric Programme, PhD

Projects.

November 2023

While at another charity, Jan and Yvonne were instrumental in the provision of a grant of nearly £50k to the Institute of Cancer Research.

This grant will help build a tissue bank for ALK, EGFR and other oncogene-driven lung cancers. This tissue bank will support Dr Paul Huang at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), working in collaboration with Professor Sanjay Popat from The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, to study treatment resistance in ALK- and EGFR-positive oncogene-addicted lung cancers.


Additionally, Jan Clark and family contributed a further £24k to the Institute of Cancer Research to support the work by the Huang Lab and Professor Sanjay Popat at The ICR.

October 2022

£25k to fund ALK-positive cancer research

In 2022, Jan Clark secured corporate sponsorship from BD, a global medical technology company that is advancing the world of health by improving medical discovery, diagnostics and the delivery of care. Through this, she spoke at townhalls and helped arrange a Tough Mudder that together led to £15k in fundraising that contributed to the $250k in grants given by US charity ALK Positive Inc.

Spotlight and news.

Watch our Co-founder Jan Clark discuss biomarker testing

Jan shares how biomarker testing has allowed her daughter Amy to go on the right treatment plan - allowing her to work and climb mountains

Watch our Chair Yvonne Diaz discuss biomarker testing

Yvonne shares how biomarker testing is key to longer-term survival and better quality of life.

For Amy, biomarker testing is about being on the right therapy

Thanks to biomarker testing, Amy, diagnosed w ALK+ lung cancer age 21, was put on a targeted therapy. Today she does many of the things she loves - travelling, seeing friends & working

Learn about ALK+ lung cancer, its resistance mechanisms and more

Our Co-founder Yvonne Diaz joins this IASLC podcast hosted by Dr Narjust Florez, with ALK expert Dr Christine Lovly. Listen here.

Collaborations.

To improve outcomes in lung cancer globally, we need to work together. We work to establish relationships and collaborations with organisations, medical and research institutions, decision makers and various patient groups. We truly believe that we are stronger together.