Simon P Bach

I am Professor of Colorectal Surgery at University of Birmingham and Honorary Consultant Colorectal Surgeon at University Hospitals Birmingham. I am section lead for surgery, deputy director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit and clinical lead for the D3B [Drugs, Devices, Diagnostics & Biomarkers] clinical trials team at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham.

I trained at Newcastle upon Tyne, Christie Hospital Manchester, John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford before joining the Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia and New Zealand training program at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne developing expertise in minimally invasive colorectal cancer treatment.

I am Director for the Royal College of Surgeons of England RADAR research initiative [Robotic and digital surgery]. RADAR provides a focal point for exchange between surgical innovators and key stakeholders including global industry. I previously led colorectal surgery at RCS (Eng) (2013-19) and chaired the National Cancer Research Institute Colorectal Cancer surgical group (2011-2018).

I am chief investigator for Cancer Research UK TREC, STAR-TREC phase II and STAR-TREC phase III studies recruiting in UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium; developing state-of-the-art organ saving outpatient treatment for rectal cancer instead of major surgery and a stoma. I am also chief investigator for MASTERY; a pan specialty robotics research network across 15 UK hospitals using machine learning to analyse robotics systems data from cancer surgeries to harmonise surgical practice, improve the efficiency of surgical training and avoid poor technical performance responsible for patient morbidity and mortality.