Professor Ian E Smith trained in Edinburgh and at Harvard before coming to work at The Royal Marsden, the UK's leading specialist cancer hospital, where he spent many years specialising in the medical treatment of breast cancer as well as lung cancer.

He is a past Chairman of the Association of Cancer Physicians and of the UK National Cancer Research Institute Lung Cancer Group, and is on the steering committees of several major international clinical research trials. He has published over 350 research papers, and lectures widely around the world. Honours include the Susan G Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction and the William McGuire Memorial Lecture Award.