Our Team

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David (known as “Winnie) is a consultant ENT, head, neck and thyroid surgeon at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. His clinical work centres on developing safe processes of care, reducing inequality and developing the roles of Allied Healthcare Professionals and trainee surgeons. He is currently the Health & Care Research Director for the North East and North Cumbria RRDN.

His research interests are broad but his main focus is on optimising patient centred outcomes in head and neck cancer. He has expertise in shared decision making and informed consent and co-led the development of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh “Informed Consent: Sharing the Decision” ICONS course. He is also the chief investigator for the Laryngeal Cancer Cohort (LARCH) which runs across the Northern Head and Neck Cancer Alliance

Debbie joined the team as Liverpool Head & Neck Centre Manager in December 2023.

Contact details: horned@liverpool.ac.uk

Deborah is a Speech and Language Therapist specialising in Head and Neck Cancer. In 2022 she secured an NIHR pre-doctoral fellowship and completed a systematic review to investigate remote Speech and Language Therapy interventions in Head and Neck Cancer.

In June 2025 she commenced an NIHR pre-doctoral bridging scheme with the University of Liverpool, with a focus on digital innovations to support patients with Head and Neck Cancer. The aim of her proposed research is to co-design and investigate the acceptability of a digital package to support patients during and following treatment for Head and Neck Cancer.

Dr Mahajan is a Consultant Radiologist at the The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool with special interest in Head and Neck Imaging, Neuroimaging, Skull base & Thyroid malignancies, Artificial Intelligence and Molecular Functional imaging. He is also honorary senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool. He has been an active contributor to the field of Artificial intelligence, head and neck imaging, neuro-oncoradiology by authoring over 420 publications. He is Associate Editor for Frontiers in Oncology, Frontiers in Nuclear Medicine and Frontiers in Radiology. He served as Professor and consultant radiologist at the Tata Memorial Hospital from 2011-2022. He worked at the Hodgkin's lab (KCL London) on HPV and Hypoxia in H&N cancer and at the Medical Image Processing lab (Guy’s and St Thomas' Hospital London) on sarcopenia and radiomics in NSCLC. He has been PI for 21 trials (1.3. million GBP from department of biotechnology). He was one of the PI for setting up the imaging Bio-Bank Lab at the Tata Memorial Centre.  He is currently working on establishing Head and Neck cancer imaging databank and research focused on grading of ENE in HPV positive HNSCC.

Dr Amy Harding received her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science from The University of Sheffield (2009) and then went on to undertake an MSc RES in Translational oncology (2015) looking at the role of long non-coding RNA in oral fibroblast phenotypes. Furthering this interest into stromal cancer cell biology, her doctoral degree focussed on the role of extracellular matrix in OSCC using complex in vitro models (Awarded 2020). After several post-doctoral positions in epithelial tissue-engineering and oral drug delivery she has recently joined Liverpool University’s, Liverpool Head and Neck Cancer centre as a North-West Cancer Research Senior Fellow mentored by Professor Keith Hunter, where she will be utilising her specialism to generate 3D/4D tissue-engineered models of the oral tumour microenvironment. These models will use the extracellular matrix generated natively from patient stromal cells i.e. Cancer associated fibroblasts and mimic the protein complexities of native tumours acting as invaluable tools for understanding how the matrix progresses head and neck cancers.  Future research intends to draw on this understanding of stromal biology as well as her specialised knowledge of in vitro oral drug delivery systems to explore and exploit cancer desmoplasia. The aim being that understanding the biochemical and architectural changes that occur in the extracellular matrix of head & neck cancers, will help develop innovative and personalised stromal-targeted therapies.

Andy is a Reader in Psychology at Edge Hill University’s Department of Psychology, He is a Chartered Psychologist, and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. His research sits at the intersection of social and health psychology, with a strong focus on predicting, understanding, and changing lifestyle behaviours. Andy works collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams to address complex health challenges through behavioural science. He has a particular interest in designing and implementing interventions that support the promotion, prevention, and self-management of health-related behaviours. A growing area of his work centres on understanding behaviour change in people living with and beyond head and neck cancer, with a specific emphasis on increasing physical activity. Andy is especially interested in how behaviour change theory can be effectively applied by healthcare professionals and patient groups in both clinical and community settings to support sustainable lifestyle changes that improve recovery and long-term outcomes.

Dr. Bell is currently Physician Executive and Director, Division of Surgical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, and Clinical Programs for Providence Cancer Institute- Oregon; Medical Director of the Providence Head and Neck Cancer Program; and Member and Director of Surgical Oncology Research at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, a division of the Providence Cancer Institute. In this role he provides vision, leadership, strategy and oversight for all clinical oncology programs and surgical oncology research throughout the Oregon region. Through his appointment as Co-Chair of the Cancer Leadership Council at Providence, he also provides leadership for the entire cancer service line in its 52-hospital health system spanning 7 western U.S. states, within which more than 45,000 cancer patients are treated annually.

Dr. Bell is a fellowship trained oral and maxillofacial/head and neck oncologic surgeon, whose clinical practice is focused on the comprehensive surgical management of patients with head and neck cancer, including tumors of the oral cavity, oropharynx, larynx, thyroid and skull base. His primary research interest is in developing novel approaches to enhance the effectiveness of surgery for the treatment of head and neck cancer. Currently, his work focuses on modulating the tumor microenvironment prior to surgery by reversing immunosuppression through monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and bioengineered materials for local drug delivery, as well as the discovery of biomarkers to predict response to immunotherapy. Using his surgical practice to run clinical trials in the neoadjuvant setting, Dr. Bell’s work bridges basic, translational and clinical activities. He has also contributed to the clinical development of virtual surgical planning, transoral robotic surgery, and sentinel lymph node biopsy for patients with head and neck cancer. His work has been published in more than 150 scientific articles and book chapters and he is co-author of two major textbooks published by Elsevier, including "Oral, Head and Neck Oncology and Reconstructive Surgery". Dr. Bell previously directed the Providence fellowship in head and neck oncologic and reconstructive microvascular surgery and has successfully mentored dozens of fellows and residents in surgery and clinical research. He has served on National Institutes of Health Head and Neck Steering Committee’s Immmunotherapy Clinical Trials Planning Group and the Task Force on Previously Untreated/Locally Advanced (PULA) Disease. He has also served on a number of editorial boards for peer review journals. Dr. Bell is Past President and Co-Founder of the American Academy of Craniomaxillofacial Surgeons; Past President of The American College of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons; and has held various leadership positions for the American College of Surgeons, American Cancer Society, American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, American Head and Neck Society, and Oregon Medical Society.