Prof Colin Watts

Professor Watts qualified from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and trained in neurosurgery in Cambridge and London where he completed his specialist training in 2004. He was awarded his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1999 and appointed as an MRC Clinician Scientist in 2004. He became a HEFCE Clinical Senior Lecturer in 2010 and was appointed Associate Professor in Neurosurgical Oncology, University of Cambridge, in 2016. Colin moved to Birmingham in March 2018 and is the Head of the Academic Department of Neurosurgery where he leads the Brain Cancer Program at the University of Birmingham.

He has published over 160 papers, articles, book chapters and reviews and serves on the editorial boards of Neuro-oncology and the European Journal of Surgical Oncology. He has received over £8M research funding as an academic consultant and was awarded the SNO translational research prize in 2013 for his work in evolutionary genomics of glioblastoma using fluorescence-guided spatial sampling. In 2021 he and his team were awarded a Tessa Jowell Centre of Excellence award from the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, which was renewed in 2024.

He is Chief Investigator of the Tessa Jowell BRAIN MATRIX platform study. He is past Chair of the NCRI Brain Group, founding Chair of the SBNS Tumour Section and past President of the British Neuro-Oncology Society. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Brain Tumour Charity, the Research Council of Finland and Chair of the West Midlands Cancer Alliance Expert Advisory Group for CNS tumours.