Professor Matt Lechner

Prof. Matt Lechner, MD, PhD, FRCS, FHEA, directs a research programme into sinonasal cancer, early cancer drug development, precision medicine and smell dysfunction at University College London. Matt obtained his PhD from University College London and trained as an ENT Surgeon at University College London Hospitals, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Barts Health in London. Before rejoining UCL, he completed a one-year surgical Instructorship/Fellowship in Rhinology and Advanced Endoscopic Skull Base Surgery under Drs. Peter Hwang, Zara Patel and Jayakar Nayak at Stanford University (Palo Alto, US). He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and was one of the first surgeons at UCL who was awarded a Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy in 2013. He has published more than 120 original articles covering smell, rhinology, cancer biology, tumor virology and experimental cancer medicine.

He has served as Co-Lead of the Head and Neck Domain of the 100,000 Genomes Project, President of the European Network for Sinonasal Cancer Research (EUSICA) and Founding President of the International Network for Sinonasal Cancer and Brain Tumour Research (INSICA-Brain). He has been awarded the title ‘Hunterian Professor’ by the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2020 and was promoted from Associate Professor to Full Professor at UCL earlier this year. Prof. Lechner will co-lead our Pan-Cancer and Molecular Oncology community to decipher genomic variations in over 200 distinct cancer types