Senior Vice President, Early Oncology, Oncology R&D
AstraZeneca
Dr. Matthew Ellis is a world-renowned clinician and researcher of the molecular profiling of breast cancer. In March 2022, he joined AstraZeneca as the Senior Vice President of Early Oncology, Oncology R&D, and leads a global community of over 1000 scientists working to bring the next wave of oncology medicines from target identification and into the clinic. They are investigating new therapies to target treatment-resistant cancers, exploring AstraZeneca’s medicines in earlier-stage disease and combining high-quality target validation with precision medicine approaches.
Before joining AstraZeneca, Dr. Ellis was the Director for the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, where he led an interdisciplinary team of oncologists, pathologists, epidemiologists, basic scientists and statisticians with the shared goal to better understand the molecular profile of breast cancer to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Ellis is committed to building teams with the diverse competencies necessary for success in oncology research.
A native of the United Kingdom, Dr. Ellis completed his medical degree from Queens’ College & School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge in England, postgraduate clinical training at the Royal College of Physicians in London and PhD training at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at the University of London. Prior to to his position at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Ellis was Professor of Medicine, Head of Breast Oncology and Head of Medical Oncology at Washington University School of Medicine. He has also served on the faculty at Duke University and Georgetown University.
Dr. Ellis’ research interests lie in applying precision medicine, multi-omics and medical oncology to discover the next wave of innovative medicines. Some of Dr. Ellis’ research highlights include being the co-lead for The Cancer Genome Atlas Breast Cancer project, deepening the understanding of the proteogenomics of breast cancer through the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium, and discovering that loss of the NF1 gene is an important driver of breast cancer resistance to hormone therapy. His work is supported by more than 350 publications in peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Cell, Cancer Cell, Cancer Research and Cancer Discovery with almost 70,000 citations and a current h-index of 103.
Throughout Dr. Ellis’ career he has been part of several networks and committees, including a member of the National Clinical Trials network, Vice Chair for the NRG Breast Committee and the Cancer and Leukemia Group CALGB Breast Committee (now Alliance), and a member of the FDA’s Oncology Drug Advisory Committee. He was a funded Scholar of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and Susan G. Komen. His awards include the Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in Clinical Research (2019), the ASCO Gianni Bonadonna Breast Cancer Award (2015) and the Stand Up to Cancer Laura Ziskin Prize (2015).