Wendy Atkin is Deputy Director of the Colorectal Cancer Unit, St Mark’s Hospital and Professor in Gastrointestinal Epidemiology, Imperial College, London. Her research is focused on average risk colorectal cancer screening and surveillance in high risk groups.

She has worked for Cancer Research UK, since 1985. She is Principal Investigator on the UK Trial of Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Screening and is currently examining the feasibility of delivering FS screening to the UK population as an NHS service using nurses to perform the screening examinations. Other research projects include a trial to examine the role of CT-colonography in diagnosis of colorectal cancer and the cox-2 inhibitor, celecoxib, in preventing recurrent colorectal adenomas. She is also co-founder with Julietta Patnick Director of the NHS Cancer Screening Programme, of the ICRCSN, an international network of organisers of colorectal cancer screening programmes, which is working towards standardisation of the quality of reporting of screening trials and programmes. Finally, she is working closely with the Department of Health, assisting with plans to introduce a national bowel cancer screening programme.