Recent PhD Students named in Forbes 30 under 30

Three recent CRUK Cambridge Institute PhD students have been named in the Forbes Europe 30 under 30 list, all within the Science and Healthcare category.

Sigourney Bell, a current PhD student in the Gilbertson Group, Dr Marcel Gehrung, a recent graduate from the Markowetz Group, and Dr Jonathan Wan, a recent graduate from the Rosenfeld Group, have all been honoured in this years’ listings.

The Forbes Under 30 Europe list sets out to highlight the young visionary leaders brashly reinventing business and society. Honourees are chosen out of thousands of international nominations, months of investigative reporting, and the seal of approval from Forbes’ panel of blue-ribbon judges.

Sigourney Bell

Sigourney Bell is currently completing her PhD in our Gilbertson Group, her project is titled “Developing novel treatments for rare childhood brain tumours”. She was listed in the Forbes 30 under 30 for her work co-founding Black in Cancer, an organisation that promotes Black excellence in research and medicine and educates the community about early diagnosis and advocacy.

Read Bell’s profile.

Marcel Gehrung

Marcel Gehrung was previously a student in the Markowetz Group, with his thesis entitled “Triage-driven diagnosis for early detection of oesophageal cancer”. His PhD was accepted in March 2021. Gehrung is the co-founder and CEO of Cyted, a spin-out company based on work done during his PhD. Cyted uses artificial intelligence to find biomarkers that detect cancer and other diseases early. They have raised more than $11 million in capital from grants and venture capital and have 30 full-time employees.

Read Gehrung’s profile.

Jonathan Wan

Jonathan Wan undertook his PhD in the Rosenfeld Group, his thesis entitled “Monitoring trace levels of ctDNA using integration of variant reads”, and graduated in July 2019. He is now an academic physician working at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals, London, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, New York. His research involves developing new, more sensitive methods for detecting cancer in blood. One of his papers, published in Nature Reviews Cancer, has been cited over 1,000 times.

Read Wan’s profile.