Throughout the decades, his dogged determination to push back the boundaries of scientific investigation and uncover new patient treatments and therapies remains undiminished.
"There are constantly new goals
– goals that evolve on a daily basis. The second you achieve one goal, three more goals appear. It a step-by-step process and you never reach the end of the journey.
"I wake up each morning and look forward to coming to work. As long as I do, I will continue."
When the 59-year-old consultant haematologist first embarked on that journey in the early 1980s, the prognosis was poor for the vast majority of patients with leukaemia. Only five per cent survived, compared to 40-50 per cent of younger adults today.
For patients failing standard therapy, high-dose therapy with autologous (patients’ own) stem cell transplantation can rescue nearly half the patients with lymphoma. The Department of Haematology at UCLH was at the forefront of these developments and is now leading the field in defining the role of allogeneic (donor cell) transplantation.
Professor Linch (pictured right) is currently leading a study to test tissue samples from patients at UCLH and elsewhere to determine the genetic changes which give rise to acute myeloid leukaemia. Understanding those changes will help in the development of new therapies and treatments.
"The greatest advantage of working at UCLH is the longstanding tradition of a shared agenda between the hospital and the university. It enables you to do things that would just not be possible in many other institutions. In haematology we make very little distinction between who is hospital and who is university
– everyone provides a clinical service and everyone makes a contribution to research and teaching", he added.