Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology, NIHR Research Translational Professor, Imperial College, London

Justin Stebbing is a Professor of Oncology at Imperial College. Whie his research experience has focused on new druggable targets in cancer along with gene regulation, this year he has turned his attention to COVID-19. He led a team using one of the largest artificial intelligence knowledge graphs in the world, to elucidate that the once daily JAK1/2 inhibitor licensed for rheumatoid arthritis, might be useful here, with not only anti-cytokine effects, but anti-viral ones too. Following his initial computer predictions published in the Lancet, numerous follow up papers have linked this to the laboratory and the bedside, including trials in patients and understanding its molecular mechanisms of actions, yielding enormous insights into SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. We await the results of large randomized studies such as ACTT-II where its efficacy and safety will be fully established.