Professor Sir John Burn gave the 2024 CPM Annual Lecture at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on Tuesday 26th March. Professor Sir John Burn obtained a first class honours degree in human genetics and an MD with distinction from Newcastle University, where he has been Professor of Clinical Genetics since 1991. He was appointed as a consultant specialist in Newcastle in 1984 and led the regional NHS Genetics Service for 20 years. He helped to create the Millennium Landmark Centre for Life, which houses an education, and science centre alongside NHS regional genetics and fertility services and University research. He is chair of the Newcastle based DNA device company QuantuMDx Ltd. He was knighted in 2010 and chosen as one of the first 20 ‘local heroes’ to have a brass plaque on Newcastle Quayside in 2014. He is a Trustee of the European Hereditary Tumour Group, UNESCO NGO Global Variome and HUGO (the Human Genome Organisation) London. He is Vice President of HUGO international. Former roles include founding Chair the UK Cancer Genetics Group (1997-2003) and of the International Society for Gastrointestinal Hereditary Tumours (InSiGHT 2003-5), President of the European Society of Human Genetics (2006-2007), Chair of the British Society for Genetic Medicine (2011-2013), Lead Clinician, Northern Strategic Health Authority (2010-2014), Non-executive Director NHS England (2014-2018) and Chair of Newcastle Hospitals (2017 -2023). He leads the Cancer Prevention Programme research group at Newcastle University; CAPP2, an RCT in 16 countries, showed that aspirin reduces by half the risk of colorectal cancer in Lynch syndrome (Burn et al Lancet 2020) and resistant starch supplements reduce the risk of other LS cancers by more than half (Mathers et al Cancer Prev Research 2022).

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