Precision Cancer Medicine (Taught)

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2025). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.

The MSc in Precision Cancer Medicine is a two-year, part-time, online course that will provide you with the multidisciplinary skillset and knowledge required to design, conduct and lead precision medicine research.

The course will appeal to health professionals from a variety of backgrounds including clinical academics, diagnosticians, scientists and clinicians from academia and industry; bio-informaticians, statisticians and scientists and clinicians working in all stages of target discovery and drug development.

Precision medicine is an emerging approach which takes into account variability in the biology, environment, and lifestyle for each individual person to help guide disease diagnosis and treatment. In particular, genetic and genomic data allow us to go beyond conventional histopathological assessment, and classify cancer into distinct sub-entities, leading to novel molecularly-directed treatment approaches.

To realise the potential for precision medicine, the clinical development of diagnostics and therapeutics need to go hand in hand. Future leaders – whether in research or in the clinic – will need a broad understanding of the field and the ability to work with a range of stakeholders.

Course structure
This course aims to deliver a broad overview of the scientific and clinical disciplines involved in precision medicine. You will cover the scientific basis for precision medicine, current technologies, drug discovery and development, and the international regulatory, payer and ethical challenges. The course consists of eight modules.