Cookies on this website
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Continue' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Contact information


xin.lu@ludwig.ox.ac.uk


Marie-Laure Foisneau-Bates
xinlu.pa@ludwig.ox.ac.uk


Xin Lu's group page


Old Road Campus Research Building

Xin Lu

FRS FMedSci

Professor of Cancer Biology

  • Director, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Oxford Branch
  • Co-Director, CRUK Oxford Centre
  • Theme Lead, Multimodal Cancer Therapies Theme, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre
  • Director, Oxford Centre for Early Cancer Detection

The main goal of our research is to identify molecular mechanisms that control cellular plasticity and suppress tumour growth. Cells are able to change their characteristics and cell fate in response to external signals. This ability to change – cellular plasticity – underlies cancer initiation, metastasis and resistance to therapy. We are particularly interested in ‘guardians’ of plasticity in epithelial cells, from which over 80% of human tumours originate. We have a long-standing interest in the tumour suppressor p53 and the ASPP family of proteins (Apoptosis-Stimulating Protein of p53; Ankyrin repeats, SH3 domain and Proline rich sequence containing proteins), which have several roles including regulation of p53.

Our current areas of interest include: understanding how selective transcription is controls cell fate; identifying regulators of cellular plasticity in upper gastrointestinal cancer initiation and metastasis (particularly oesophageal cancer and gastric cancer); and understanding the influence of infection on cell plasticity and cancer (particularly Helicobacter pylori and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) infection).

Key publications

Recent publications

More publications