Professor Hemant Kocher

Group Leader

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Overview
Team
Team Information
Research
Key Publications
Major Funding
Other Activities
Biography
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Professor of Liver and Pancreas Surgery

Overview

I am a surgeon-scientist. My clinical research interests include tissue banking, clinical trials, innovative surgical techniques, epidemiology, meta-analysis and patient care pathways. My translational research interests include pancreatic cancer stroma and tumour-stroma cross-talk including cell signalling, adhesion, metastasis, invasion leading to innovative therapies and novel biomarkers. The main organ systems my group studies include disease of the pancreas, liver, bile duct and gall bladder with particular focus on pancreatic cancer, liver metastases from bowel cancer and uveal melanoma (cancer of the eye) as well as duodenal cancers (UKDCSG). My clinical NHS practice is at the Barts and the London HPB Centre at the Royal London Hospital of Barts Health NHS Trust. My recent work according to research areas is listed below.

Team

Dr Pramod Darvin

Postdoctoral Researcher

Akil Gani

PhD Student

Dr Christos Kakouratos

Postdoctoral Researcher

Sathyan Nagendram

PhD Student

Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank Team

Rhiannon Roberts
Christine Hughes
Akshay Ravi
Amina Saad
Trupti Kolvekar

Research

I am a surgeon-scientist practising in London in the field of hepato-biliary-pancreatic surgery having trained in Bombay, India as well as the United Kingdom and held visiting posts in Europe and the USA.

My laboratory has pioneered the evaluation of tumour-stroma interaction in pancreatic cancer linking patho-physiology of cancer with molecular mechanisms which underpin its aggressiveness. This has led to discovery of novel biomarkers for diagnosing and predicting disease patterns as well as therapeutic areas which are being explored in human clinical trials. Ours is the first laboratory to target desmoplastic cellular stroma demonstrating the possibility of co-targeting in cancer therapy.

I also leads national bio-banking efforts which along with state-of-the-art health-informatics and bio-informatics. I hope to change our understanding of disease processes.

I have trained more than 35 clinical and non-clinical post-graduate students for their doctoral studies.

Key Publications

Recent top 5

Clinico-pathological diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for duodenal adenocarcinoma from a UK retrospective Cohort study. Hum Pathol. (2026) Mar 25:106106. doi: 10.1016/j.humpath.2026.106106. PMID: 41895379
Negative Selection Maintains Grossly Altered but Broadly Stable Karyotypes in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer. Cancer Discov. (2026) Feb 6;16(2):218-234. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-24-0813. PMID: 41563072
Intensive Surveillance and Aggressive Multimodal Treatment for Liver Metastases From Uveal Melanoma. Ann Surg Open. (2025) Oct 8;6(4):e620. doi: 10.1097/AS9.0000000000000620. eCollection 2025 Dec. PMID: 41451195
The interplay between natural killer cells and pancreatic stellate cells in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Cancer Commun (Lond). (2025) Feb;45(2):172-177. doi: 10.1002/cac2.12638. Epub 2024 Dec 9. PMID: 39654335
Study protocol: multi-centre, randomised controlled clinical trial exploring stromal targeting in locally advanced pancreatic cancer; STARPAC2. BMC Cancer. (2025) Jan 20;25(1):106. doi: 10.1186/s12885-024-13333-z. PMID: 39833722

Highlights of older work

Pancreatic Cancer Chemotherapy Is Potentiated by Induction of Tertiary Lymphoid Structures in Mice. Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol (2021) S2352-345X(21)00138-7. PMID: 34252585. Cover of the Journal.
Pentraxin 3 is a stromally-derived biomarker for detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. NPJ Precis Oncol (2021) 5(1):61. PMID: 34188166
Phase I clinical trial repurposing all-trans retinoic acid as a stromal targeting agent for pancreatic cancer. Nat Commun (2020) 11(1):4841. PMID: 32973176. Voted by Editors as Highlight in Translational and Clinical Research.
Inter- and intra-tumoural heterogeneity in cancer-associated fibroblasts of human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. J Pathol (2019) 248(1):51-65. PMID: 30575030. Awarded Jeremy Jass Prize for Research Excellence.
Activated pancreatic stellate cells sequester CD8+ T cells to reduce their infiltration of the juxtatumoral compartment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Gastroenterology. (2013) Nov;145(5):1121-32. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2013.07.025. Epub 2013 Jul 25. PMID: 23891972
Retinoic acid-induced pancreatic stellate cell quiescence reduces paracrine Wnt-β-catenin signaling to slow tumor progression. Froeling FE, Feig C, Chelala C, Dobson R, Mein CE, Tuveson DA, Clevers H, Hart IR, Kocher HM. Gastroenterology. (2011) Oct;141(4):1486-97, 1497.e1-14. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2011.06.047. Epub 2011 Jun 24. PMID: 21704588

See recent publications

Major Funding

2021-2026- Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, Retinoic acid regulation of pancreatic stellate cell phenotype, £240,978
2019-2028- MRC DPFS, Phase IIb randomised clinical trial repurposing ATRA as a stromal targeting agent in a novel drug combination for pancreatic cancer (STAR-PAC2), £1,417,355
2015-2029- Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank, £4.5 Million
2022-2027: NIHR Barts Biomedical Research Centre (CoI) £20 Million

Other Activities

NHS roles:

MDT Lead, Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic MDT, Barts Health NHS Trust (2015-)
Research Director, Clinical Board of Surgery, Barts Health NHS Trust (2018-2024)
NIHR Research for Patient Benefit, London Research Advisory Group (2018-2022)

External roles:

MDT Lead, Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic MDT, The London Clinic (2025-)
Scientific Advisory Committee, Worldwide Cancer Research (2016-2021)
Research Lead, The London Clinic (2019-2023)
Site reviewer, Singapore A*STAR Programme on Liver Cancer (2016-)

Biography

Having qualified in medicine (MBBS) and trained as surgeon (MS) at the prestigious Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital in Mumbai with a number of distinctions and medals during undergraduate and post-graduate training, I moved to the UK to pursue a surgeon-scientist career. I performed my doctoral training (MD) at University of London, completed my specialist HPB training in London (FRCS, CCST) to be appointed as NIHR Clinician Scientist in 2005 at Barts Cancer Institute. I have led a multi-disciplinary research team focusing on cellular and molecular biology of cancer to develop treatments and early diagnostic tests. I have collaborated internationally to explore hypothesis-driven research. I have been privileged to train more than 35 scientist and doctors through their doctoral (MD/PhD) studies who are now group leaders, entrepreneurs or industry leaders. Our work is supported through grants from medical charities, NIHR and MRC (UKRI).

Related News

New approach offers hope for people with rare eye cancer

A more active approach to monitoring and treating people with a rare eye cancer (known as uveal melanoma) that has spread to the liver could help some patients to live longer, according to researchers at Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London. The findings, from a retrospective study of the largest UK cohort of patients with this condition to date, offer an encouraging sign of progress in this rare and difficult-to-treat cancer.

Publications 21 January 2026