Professor Walker, co-Director with Dr Klaber Moffettof the Institute of Rehabilitation, has the largest ongoing interventional psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) breast and colorectal cancer portfolio in the world.  He led the psychological aspects of two major multicentre RCTs funded by the Medical Research Council: MARIBS, to evaluate MRI in screening women at high familial risk of breast cancer; and TOMBOLA, to evaluate management options in women with a borderline or low grade abnormal cervical smear).

Having moved to Hull in 1999, he established Oncology Health Centres on the two Acute Trust sites.  These "drop-in" centres, staffed by clinical health psychologists, oncologists and specialist nurses, meet a clinical need (more than 1,500 new patients annually) and provide an excellent research resource.  Professor Walker and colleagues received substantial funding from the R&D Cancer Programme in 2002 for a randomised controlled trial of reflexology, massage and self-initiated support in 183 women with early breast cancer.  Subsequently, with Dr Greenman having obtained additional funding, it was possible to evaluate neuro-immunological effects in the same patients.  They were the first to demonstrate that reflexology produced statistically and clinically significant improvement in generic cancer-related quality of life as well as significant changes in various immunological parameters [reported at the 8th World Congress of Psycho-Oncology (2006) Venice, Italy].

In 2003, Professors Walker and colleagues received funding from Cancer Research UK for an RCT to evaluate the effects of relaxation and guided imagery, alone and in combination, in patients with colorectal cancer.  A total of 151 patients had been randomised when the trial completed recruitment in 2006. 

Professor Walker was recently awarded a project grant from Dimbleby Cancer Care to undertake a feasibility study of relaxation therapy plus autohypnotherapy for patients with lung cancer undergoing radiotherapy.