The dark blue therapeutics team

Professor Johann de Bono is Regius Professor of Cancer Research at The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden Hospital. He has led on the development of abiraterone, cabazitaxel, enzalutamide, olaparib, lutetium PSMA and the molecular genomic stratification and germline sequencing of advanced prostate cancer. Professor de Bono leads the Drug Development Unit at the Royal Marsden which comprises >100 staff and conducts >50 Phase I clinical trials at any one time and runs a research laboratory.

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Chas is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Innovation at the University of Oxford, Professor of Translational Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, Director of the Centre for Medicines Discovery and Professorial Fellow at Keble College, Oxford. Chas is an invited expert on several government and charitable research funding bodies, and an advisor for many academic, biotech and pharma drug discovery programmes.

Prior to coming back to Oxford in 2008, Chas was Vice President and Head of Biology at GlaxoSmithKline. He was involved in the identification of more than 40 clinical candidates for many gastro-intestinal, inflammatory and neuro-psychiatric diseases. More than 20 of these molecules progressed into patient studies and more than five of these delivered successful “Proof of Concept” data. He was involved in the launch and development of the first treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (Alosetron) and was the first to show that neurokinin NK1 antagonists are anti-emetic in preclinical and clinical studies.

His current interests are in using structures of novel human proteins to generate small molecule inhibitors, screening in human cells to identify novel targets for drug discovery, and then developing clinical candidates for evaluation in patients, pre-competitively. He is also helping students and academic colleagues translate their research for the benefit of patients, society, industry and economy.

He has given over 400 invited lectures. In 2012 he was voted one of the “top innovators in the industry”, in 2014 received the “Rita and John Cornforth Award” from the Royal Society of Chemistry, in 2017 and 2018 was voted “Master of the Bench” from the Medicine Maker Power List, and in 2018 was awarded the “Order of the British Empire” in the New Years Honours List.

Dr. Fields is a medical oncologist/hematologist with more than 30 years of experience in clinical drug development. He is currently Chief Medical Officer for NeoTx, a novel Immunotherapies biotech company. Prior to joining NeoTX, he was the Global Head of Development for Oncology at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. At Bayer, Dr. Fields was responsible for early and late-stage development including several novel oncology medicines across the platforms for targeted therapies/precision medicine, antibody drug/alpha radiation conjugates and novel Immuno-Oncology agents. His group was responsible for the development and global registration of multiple drugs including Darolutamide – a next generation androgen receptor inhibitor for prostate cancer, and with partner Loxo, for Larotrectinb where Bayer led the effort resulting in the first tissue agnostic approval in the EU. Prior to his position at Bayer, Dr. Fields held senior positions leading the clinical oncology programs at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, and Arno Therapeutics and was the global head of clinical development for all therapeutic areas for Eisai, helping to start and progress their oncology program.  He has helped bring over a dozen drugs to market globally. 

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Professor of Cancer Genomics Deputy Director Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre Team Leader , CRUK Gene Function Laboratory The Institute of Cancer Research, London

Professor Chris Lord is Deputy Head of Division, Team Leader of the CRUK Gene Function Laboratory and Professor of Cancer Genomics in the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research, London. Much of his work focuses on exploiting genetic concepts such as synthetic lethality to identify new approaches to treating cancer and to understand the variable effectiveness of existing treatments.

Chris carried out his PhD in complex disease genetics with John Todd and Richard Gardner at the University of Oxford before carrying out a Post-Doctoral Fellowship with Todd at the University of Cambridge. Chris joined the ICR London as a Post-Doctoral Fellow with Alan Ashworth in 2000, where he was joint first author on a paper describing the synthetic lethal interaction between BRCA-tumour suppressor genes and PARP inhibitors (Nature 2005), observations that eventually led to the use of these drugs for the treatment of breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancers.

Later, Chris exploited high-throughput genetic perturbation screens to understand a variety of cancer-related phenotypes including drug sensitivity/resistance and the identification of novel therapeutic targets (e.g. Cancer Cell 2008, Cancer Discov. 2011), a number of which are now being investigated as part of new drug development programmes. Chris has also used multiple approaches to uncover and/or understand clinically-relevant mechanisms of resistance to DNA repair inhibitors (e.g. Nature 2008, Nature Commun. 2018, Cancer Discov. 2020, Nature Cell Biol 2022) and to identify novel synthetic lethal approaches that target hard-to-treat cancers, including those with ARID1A, Rb or E-cadherin defects (e.g.Cancer Discov.2018).

More recently, Chris has focused on using high-throughput genetic perturbation screens to understand the principles that govern the robustness of synthetic lethal interactions (e.g.Elife 2020) and using an understanding of how PARPi resistance emerges to design new ways of treatingBRCA1/2mutant cancer, either by the use of Polymerase Theta inhibitors or by activating the immune system (Cancer Discov. 2020, Nat. Comms 2021). The impact of the work led by Lord is demonstrated by the number of completed and on-going clinical trials in cancer that are based upon synthetic lethal interactions he has identified as well as the assessment in these trials of biomarkers of cancer drug sensitivity/resistance he has identified.

Dr. Andrew Mortlock is Executive Vice-President and Head of Early Development at Astellas Pharma. Prior to his current assignment he was Vice President and Global Franchise Head at Astra Zeneca’s Late Development Oncology Unit with global responsibility for several Phase 3 development projects. In his previous roles, he oversaw Astra Zeneca’s entire haematology portfolio and led the Chemistry team that developed the selective Aurora B kinase inhibitor AZD1152. He also worked as Product Team Leader in the Early Development group, was leader of the Alderley Park/Reims Research group and from 2010 on, held responsibility for the global small molecule oncology portfolio through Phase II, and oversaw the development of Astra Zeneca’s oncology combination strategy. Apart from his assignments at AstraZeneca, Andrew served as Chief Scientific Officer at Acerta Pharma.

Dr. Timothy Yap is a Medical Oncologist and Physician-Scientist based at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is an Associate Professor in the Department for Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase I Program), and the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology. Dr. Yap is the Medical Director of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science, a drug discovery biopharmaceutical unit where drug discovery and clinical translation are seamlessly integrated. He is also the Associate Director of Translational Research in the Institute for Personalised Cancer Therapy, which is an integrated research and clinical trials program aimed at implementing personalised cancer therapy and improving patient outcomes. Prior to his current position, Dr. Yap was a Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK and National Institute for Health Research BRC Clinician Scientist at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK.

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