2026 Annual Conference Chairs

Luke Boulter, PhD

Luke Boulter completed his BSc (Hons) degree in Molecular Cell Biology from the University of York in 2004, where he became interested in how cells communicate and how multicellular processes are regulated. Following this, he moved to the University of Edinburgh-MRC Centre for Inflammation Research to undertake a PhD with Prof Stuart Forbes.  His PhD focused on how adult progenitor cells are regulated in the liver and he showed that by balancing Wnt and Notch signalling, liver progenitor cells are able to switch fate. During  a relatively brief spell as a post-doctoral fellow at the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, he showed that the signals which govern progenitor cell fate also regulate the growth of cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer of the bile duct with a very poor prognosis.

Luke moved to the MRC Human Genetics Unit in 2014 as a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow and University of Edinburgh Chancellors Fellow and was awarded a prestigious Cancer Research UK Fellowship in 2020. His lab has published seminal work on bile duct development, repair and cancer using a combination of human genetics, molecular biology and disease modelling. Luke is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Edinburgh.

Tim F. Greten, MD

Tim F. Greten, M.D., received his medical training at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany. He did his internship in Munich followed by a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland), where he initiated his work in the field of tumor immunology. In 1999, Dr. Greten returned to Hannover Medical School, where he finished his training in Internal Medicine (2003), Medical Oncology (2004) and Gastroenterology (2007). He held an Associate Professor position in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology in Hannover Medical School. In February 2010, Dr. Greten joined CCR's Medical Oncology Branch as the head of the Gastrointestinal Malignancy Section and was promoted as a tenured Senior Investigator in 2015 and Deputy Branch Chief in 2018 and CCR Deputy Director in 2023.

Dr. Greten has published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers in different journals including Science, Nature, Cell, Cancer Cell, Cancer Discovery and New England Journal of Medicine. In 2023 Dr. Greten was awarded the NCI and CCR Director's Award for Outstanding Mentorship. Dr. Greten is co-chair of the Center of Excellence in Immunology(external link) and co-director of the NCI CCR Liver Cancer Program. He conducts innovative clinical trials to develop novel treatments for patients with cholangiocarcinoma.