Professional Profile

Mr Liam Poynter graduated from the Imperial College School of Medicine in 2009 with MB BS and the Associateship of the Imperial College School of Medicine (AICSM).

As part of his undergraduate training, he undertook original research in the fields of reproductive medicine and paediatric infectious diseases at St Mary’s Hospital and the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology (IRDB), as part of an intercalated BSc (Hons) in Medical Sciences with Paediatrics.

In addition to his broad-based general surgical and specialist colorectal surgery training, he has a wealth of experience in the operative management of civilian major trauma following four years’ experience working at the North-West London Major Trauma Centre (MTC) at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.

Following completion of his specialty training across London, Kent and Sussex, he undertook a post-CCT specialist fellowship in Complex and Recurrent Colon/Rectal Cancer and Peritoneal Malignancy between Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (Charing Cross and St Mary’s hospitals) and The Cleveland Clinic in London.

As a consultant colorectal surgeon, his specialist interests lie with multi-modal management of colon, rectal and anal cancers, including complex and recurrent cancer and neuroendocrine tumours.

He also works in collaboration with the gynaecological surgical oncologists for delivery of complex multi-visceral surgery for advanced ovarian cancer.

He was awarded his PhD in Cancer Sciences from Imperial College in 2022 for the thesis entitled ‘A next-generation -omics analysis of the radiotherapy response in rectal cancer’, undertaken under the supervision of Professor Ara Darzi, Professor Zoltan Takats and Mr Reza Mirnezami.

Mr Poynter has presented multiple papers at national and international meetings, including the prize-winning paper at the 11th European Colorectal Congress in 2017.

He was also awarded a prestigious Scholar-In-Training Award by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in 2018, for a proffered paper to the 109th AACR Annual Meeting in Chicago, USA.

A full list of Mr Poynter’s peer-reviewed publications and published book chapters is available from Imperial College.

Since his appointment, Mr Poynter has been instrumental in delivering a substantial uplift in the NIHR trials available to patients treated through the Kent Oncology Centre and the Digestive Diseases Unit at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals for both cancer and benign disease respectively.

He is developing an exciting original research programme across Kent and Medway focussing on health inequalities in digestive diseases, in collaboration with the Trust’s Digestive Diseases Unit, the University of Kent and the Kent and Medway Medical School.