Scientific Advisors and Clinical Consultants
Professor Sir Tom Blundell, FRS
Founder
Tom Blundell is Head of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK and a world-leader in research on protein structure and function. He has pioneered many aspects of the protein structure field and is an authority on structure-based drug design and protein bioinformatics. He has also played an active role in UK national science policy in appointments as Director General of the AFRC (1991-1994) and Chief Executive of the BBSRC (1994-1996).
Prof Chris Abell, PhD
Founder
Chris Abell is Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and the Todd Hameid Fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge. His research focuses on the study of enzyme mechanism and inhibition, and aspects of bio-nanotechnology. Professor Abell has recently held visiting professorships at the Australian National University in Canberra, the University of Santiago de Compostela, and the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. Professor Abell is also a co-founder of Akubio.
Simon F Campbell, PhD FRS
Simon Campbell has co-authored over 110 publications and patents and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999 and was President of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 2004 to 2006. Dr Campbell has received numerous awards for his scientific achievements including the Royal Society of Chemistry Medal for Medicinal Chemistry, the Hershberg Award from the American Chemical Society and the IRI Achievement Award. Dr Campbell recently retired from Pfizer Central Research as Senior VP of Worldwide Discovery and Medicinals R&D Europe.
Harren Jhoti, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Harren Jhoti co-founded Astex in 1999 and was Chief Scientific Officer until November 2007 when he was appointed Chief Executive. Dr. Jhoti was recently named by the Royal Society of Chemistry as ‘Chemistry World Entrepreneur of the Year’ for 2007. He has published widely including in leading journals such as Nature and Science and has also featured in TIME magazine after being named by the World Economic Forum a Technology Pioneer in 2005. Dr. Jhoti was also a non-executive director of Iconix Inc. and is currently a member of the SAB for Cellzome Ltd. Before setting up Astex in 1999, he was Head of Structural Biology and Bioinformatics at GlaxoWellcome in the UK (1991-1999). Prior to Glaxo, Dr. Jhoti was a post-doctoral scientist at Oxford University and received his BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry in 1985, and PhD in Protein Crystallography from the University of London in 1989.
Steven V Ley, PhD FRS
Steven Ley is currently the BP (1702) Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is also key advisor to companies such as Pfizer and Novartis. Prof Ley's awards for contributions to science include the Rhone-Poulenc Lectureship, Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Glaxo Wellcome Award for Outstanding Achievement in Organic Chemistry. Prof Ley was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990 and was President of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 2000 to 2004.
Robert Stroud, PhD
Robert Stroud is Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF, San Francisco. Prof Stroud's research interests include understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in key biological processes, including signal transduction, using X-ray crystallography. He has pioneered the use of structure-based drug design on many targets including thymidylate synthase and HIV/SIV proteins. Prof Stroud, who was educated in Cambridge, England, is a Fellow of the Biophysical Society and the New York Academy of Sciences and has published in many of the leading scientific journals including Nature and Science.
Barry Furr, OBE BSc MA (Cantab) FMedSci
Barry Furr was formerly Chief Scientist at AstraZeneca where he also led the teams that discovered Zoladex and Casodex, important drugs for the treatment of breast and prostate cancer. He is a past Chairman of the Society for Endocrinology, and Fellow of both the Academy of Medical Sciences and Institute of Biology. He was awarded the Society for Drug Research Drug Discovery Award for the work on Zoladex and the Jubilee Medal of the Society for Endocrinology for his contribution to Endocrinology. In the millennium honours he was made an OBE for services to cancer research and is a trustee of Cancer Research UK and the Breast Cancer Campaign.
David R. (Herbie) Newell, PhD
Herbie Newell is Professor of Cancer Therapeutics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Director of Translational Research at Cancer Research UK. He is Past-Chairman of the British Association for Cancer Research, and the Laboratory Research Division and the Pharmacology and Molecular Mechanisms Group of the EORTC. Professor Newell was involved in the development of the licensed anticancer drugs carboplatin (Paraplatin) and ralitrexed (Tomudex). His current research interests include the development of molecularly-targeted anticancer drugs, in particular kinase inhibitors, and the identification of drugs that modulate DNA repair as a mechanism for over coming resistance to cytotoxic drugs and radiotherapy.
He is an author of over 180 scientific articles and Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology. Professor Newell has acted as a consultant for international and national Pharma and Biotech companies.
Ian Skidmore, MA (Oxon) DPhil
Ian Skidmore trained as a biochemist and has MA and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford. Dr Skidmore has held significant executive responsibilities in GlaxoWellcome including Vice President of Development for Glaxo Inc. in North Carolina, World-Wide Director of Exploratory Development and Director of Drug Discovery UK/France. Since leaving GlaxoWellcome in August 2000 he has acted as an independent consultant in pharmaceutical R&D with particular interest in drug discovery and early development. He has a range of clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in UK and Europe and has consulted for several Venture Capital organisations.
Ashok Venkitaraman, MB PhD FMedSci
Ashok Venkitaraman is the Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer Research at Cambridge University, and co-Director of the Medical Research Council’s Cancer Cell Unit there. He is distinguished for his research on the molecular pathogenesis and treatment of cancer, and serves as an advisor to companies such as Cambridge Antibody Technology and Sentinel Oncology. Prof. Venkitaraman is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, London, and the EMBO European academy.
A. Hilary Calvert, MB BChir MSc MD FRCP FMedSci
Hilary Calvert is the Clinical Director of the Northern Institute for Cancer Research and Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. His training is in Medicine, Mathematics and Biochemistry. He has had a long involvement in anticancer drug development working at the Institute for Cancer Research at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London from 1977. During this period he was responsible for the introduction of carboplatin into clinical practice and its subsequent clinical development in ovarian cancer. He also led the group developing folate-based inhibitors of thymidylate synthase, leading eventually to the licensing of Tomudex™ (ratitrexed) with Astrazeneca. Since 1989 he has worked in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne implemeting a program of drug development aimed at using the molecular pathology of human cancers to define targets, developing drugs aimed at those targets and performing preclinical and clinical studies. He also runs a major clinical trials program with up to eight Phase I studies of anticancer drugs open at any given time in addition to Phase II and III studies. The clinical trials unit in Newcastle is on of the key centres for Cancer Research UK and for the UK National Translational Research Committee in Cancer (NTRAC)
Ian Judson, MA MB BChir MD FRCP
Ian Judson has many years of experience in the development of new anticancer drugs. The Drug Development Unit at the Royal Marsden is focused on the clinical investigation of novel anticancer agents incorporating “proof of principle” pharmacodynamic biomarker studies, including functional imaging. Prof Judson has also been involved in the management of sarcomas for a number of years. He is Vice-Chairman of the EORTC Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group, a member of the NCRI Sarcoma Clinical Studies Group and current President of the British Sarcoma Group. He is PI for a number of international sarcoma trials and has a special interest in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumours (GISTs).
Hagop Kantarjian, MD
Hagop Kantarjian is currently serving as Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, where he has been since joining as a fellow in the Department of Developmental Therapeutics in 1981. He specialises in leukemia and holds an interest in creating new treatment approaches for these diseases. He has authored and contributed to over 560 medical publications, articles and abstracts and, for his accomplishments, has received awards, including a Leukemia Society of America Scholarship from 1989-1994 and a Leukemia Society of America Special Fellow Scholarship from 1982-1983.
Stan Kaye, BSc MD FRCP FRCR FRSE FMedSci
Stan Kaye is Professor of Medical Oncology at Royal Marsden Hospital and Head of the Section of Medicine at the Institute of Cancer Research, London. He took up this position in September 2000 after 20 years in Glasgow (the last 15 as Head of Dept. of Medical Oncology in the University). He has major interests in drug development, drug resistance and ovarian cancer and has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles on these and other topics. He is currently overseeing a major expansion of Phase I trial activity at the Royal Marsden Hospital; a new clinical trials centre has just opened there (November 2004) with 16 beds and the capacity to enter 300 patients per year into up to 20 trials. He works very closely with Prof Paul Workman; their joint programme is particularly focussed on developing and evaluating novel molecular targeted agents. Prof Kaye has significant responsibility within Cancer Research UK, the world’s largest cancer charity, in which he chairs a new joint translational/clinical trial research committee and is a member of its Scientific Executive Board.
Daruka Mahadevan, MD PhD
Daruka Mahadevan is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Director of Drug Development at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. He received his Ph.D. in structural biology at the University of London, and completed his M.D. at Kings College in London. He was a Fogarty International post-doctoral Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, NIH and served as a Senior Research Scientist in the Antibody Engineering and Cancer Therapeutics group of Celltech Therapeutics, UK. He completed Internal Medicine residency at the University of Connecticut and Hematology/Oncology fellowship at the Arizona Cancer Center. Dr. Mahadevan is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology and is active in the design and execution of clinical trials for investigational agents.
Bruce Ponder, MB PhD FRCP FRCPath FMedSci FRS
Bruce Ponder is Professor and Head of the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge and Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, and Co-Director of the Strangeways Research Laboratory for Genetic Epidemiology. His research interests are in common genetic variation and susceptibility to cancer, and his group have just completed a large (250,000) SNP genome scan for breast cancer. For the past ten years he has also been leading the development of the cancer clinical research developments on the Addenbrooke’s site.
Lesley Seymour, MD PhD FCP(SA) FRCPC
Lesley Seymour received her MD and subsequently completed specialist training in Internal Medicine and later Clinical Haematology and Medical Oncology. After eight years as a Senior Consultant in the Division of Clinical Haematology and Medical Oncology at the University of Witwatersrand, she spent two years with Zeneca in the United Kingdom. She then relocated in Canada as the Director of Medical Oncology at the Newfoundland Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation. In 1996 Dr Seymour took up her current position as co-Director of the Investigational New Drug Program at the NCIC CTG, where her primary responsibilities are Phase I and II studies of novel compounds, as well as research into lung malignancies. She also holds the position of Professor in the Department of Oncology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Queen’s University, Canada.
Dr Seymour has served on many provincial, national and international committees and grants panels, including Cancer Care Ontario, National Cancer Institute of Canada, National Cancer Institute and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD FACP
Daniel D. Von Hoff, M.D, is currently Senior Investigator and Head of Translational Research at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, Arizona.
Dr Von Hoff's major interest is in the development of new anticancer agents, both in the clinic and in the laboratory. His laboratory interests and contributions have been in the areas of in vitro drug sensitivity testing for individualizing treatment for patients, mechanisms of gene amplification, particularly of extrachromosomal DNA, and understanding of and targeting telomere maintenance mechanisms. Dr Von Hoff and his laboratory team are currently concentrating on discovery of new targets in pancreatic cancer.
In the area of clinical drug development, Dr Von Hoff and his colleagues were involved in the early development of many of the agents now used routinely, including: Mitoxantrone, Findarabine, Paclitaxel, Docetaxel, Gemcitabine, CPT-11, Iressa®, Tarceva® and others. At present, he and his colleagues are concentrating on the development of molecularly targeted therapies.
Dr Von Hoff has published more than 515 papers, 129 book chapters, and more than 858 abstracts.
Dr Von Hoff is the past President of the American Association for Cancer Research, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a member and past board member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He was a founder and board member of ILEX™ Oncology, Inc. which was recently acquired by Genzyme Corporation. He is founder and the Editor Emeritus of Investigational New Drugs - The Journal of New Anticancer Agents; and, Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. He is also proud to have been a mentor and teacher for multiple medical students, medical oncology fellows, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows.