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Three Caians have been recognised in The King’s New Year Honours List.

Professor Peter Sasieni (Mathematics 1981) was awarded a CBE for services to Cancer Early Detection and Prevention.

Dr Gail Miflin (Medical Sciences 1985) was awarded an OBE for services to Blood and Plasma Services.

Professor Geoffrey Crossick (History 1964) was awarded an MBE for services to the Arts and to Education.

Professor Peter Sasieni, after reading Mathematics at Gonville & 91ֱ�� College, completed a PhD in Biostatistics at the at the University of Washington in Seattle. Returning to England, Peter worked at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (one of the precursors of CRUK), until moving with his team to Queen Mary University of London. Between 2017 and 2018 he was Professor of Cancer Prevention and Director of King’s Clinical Trials Unit at King’s College London. Peter is a member of the CRUK Prevention and Population Research Committee, which is chaired by Professor Kay-Tee Khaw (Life Fellow at 91ֱ��).

He says: “I am overwhelmed but delighted to receive this honour. I feel very privileged, particularly as a statistician, to have worked in the field of cervical screening and HPV vaccination. Together with hundreds of colleagues around the world, we have transformed cervical cancer control and are on the verge of making this once common cancer extremely rare. It sets a paradigm of what can be achieved through early detection and prevention. I would like to thank my team, past and present, who have been central to all that we have achieved.”

Dr Gail Miflin has been Chief Medical Officer at NHS Blood & Transplant since 2016 and has led the development of new treatments to save and improve lives and tackle health inequalities in this field. During the pandemic she led the COVID Convalescent Plasma programme to collect convalescent plasma (antibody-rich blood plasma from patients who have recently recovered from an infectious disease) and deliver the first large scale trials in the world. This led to regulatory assessments of the safety of UK plasma and enabled its collection and fractionation to make medicines. NHS patients will start to receive UK plasma-derived products this year, for the first time in 25 years.

Gail also leads Research & Development in NHSBT, where teams collaborate with many others, including the University of Cambridge, to improve outcomes for people, particularly those from Black and Asian backgrounds, by providing more and better matched blood, stem cells and organs. She is also to deliver a first-in-human trial of manufactured red blood cells, develop new blood components and manufacture plasmids and viral vectors for academics developing novel cellular therapies.

Professor Geoffrey Crossick is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Having spent much of his career as an academic historian specialising in modern British and European social history, he also held positions as Chief Executive of the Arts & Humanities Research Board (taking it through to its establishment as a full research council, AHRC, in 2005), Warden of Goldsmiths and Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. In 2012 he became Director of the AHRC’s Cultural Value Project and co-authored its 2016 report , which has since been published in a Japanese edition.

The relationship between universities, the cultural sector and the creative industries has been an important part of his work, and he has been actively involved in governance in the cultural sector. Among many other positions, he is currently a Trustee of Creative Lives, a governor of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the National Film & Television School, and a member of the Science Advisory Council of the Department of Culture, Media & Sport.