Professor Alan Melcher graduated in medicine from the University of Oxford in 1989, and trained in Clinical Oncology (Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy) in Cardiff, London and Leeds.

Following completion of his PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) in London, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota, before returning to the UK, where he became Professor of Clinical Oncology and Biotherapy in Leeds in 2007.

In April 2016, he moved to The Institute of Cancer Research, London, as Professor of Translational Immunology and Honorary Consultant Oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. He combines a clinical practice in head and neck cancer and melanoma with laboratory and translational research focused on oncolytic viruses and immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer.