Professor Ray Powles CBE

Professor Ray Powles formed and ran one of the largest and most innovative blood cancer units worldwide at the Royal Marsden Hospital until 2003, where he was responsible for the first successful bone marrow transplant in Europe, undertaken in 1973. He was the first to use cyclosporine and acyclovir and reported the first autologous stem cell transplant for myeloma. For these and other developments, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire CBE by the Queen in 2003. He now runs a similar unit in the private sector at Cancer Centre London, where he is the lead clinician for the haemato-oncology and bone marrow transplant units.

Professor Powles works at the forefront of decision making for the management of multiple myeloma with the International Myeloma Working Group, and in research and development in his specialised area (including overseeing the development of the Cancer Centre London research database for local and international research).

Until December 2010, he was Chairman of the American Society of Haematology Scientific Committee for Plasma Cell Biology. In 1999 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Cancer Patients Aid Association for his work with training and facilitating cancer care on the subcontinent. Professor Powles has always been active in drug development, and particularly with the advisory board to the pharma industry. He was a Director of the Swiss biopharmaceutical company BioPartners until 2008. He is Medical Advisor to the Bud Flanagan Leukaemia Charity and the International Myeloma Working Group. He is very active in the UK NHS Modernisation programme as a clinical member of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel.

On the academic side, Professor Powles has written 1,200 scientific papers, lectures regularly around the world, and is currently Chairman of the European Blood and Marrow Transplant (EBMT) Nuclear Accident Committee, which he formed after 9/11 and which has close links with U.S. emergency preparedness groups.