Scientific Advisory Board
Professor Ashok Venkitaraman (Chairman)
Ashok is the Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer Research in the University of Cambridge Department of Oncology, Director-elect of the Medical Research Council's Cancer Cell Unit, and leads a new initiative in Cambridge focused on drug development for cancer.
A qualified physician, Ashok is distinguished for his scientific work on the molecular pathogenesis of inherited cancer syndromes, and is an expert on DNA repair and the cell cycle. He is both an elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in London as well as the EMBO European academy. He works extensively with industry, serving on the scientific advisory boards of Cambridge Antibody Technology and Astex Therapeutics. Ashok is a non-executive director of Sentinel Oncology and chairs the scientific advisory board.
Dr John Dixon
John Dixon has 36 years experience in Pharmaceutical Research & Development. He has been associated with and responsible for research projects into Respiratory, Inflammation, Cardiovascular and Gastrointestinal diseases. He is the inventor of one marketed cardiovascular drug and of several other compounds that reached advanced stages in Clinical Development.
John was Head of Medicinal Chemistry for 20 years at Fisons and Vice President of Preclinical R&D in Astra Charnwood for 4 years. For the last 8 years he has been Vice President of Drug Discovery at AstraZeneca R&D Charnwood with responsibility for 400 scientists working on Respiratory and Inflammation. His role has extended from Research into Drug Development involving several international locations within the company. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Member of the American Chemical Society and has served on several professional and academic advisory committees. Recently he was awarded an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Loughborough.
Professor Adrian Harris
Adrian L Harris is the Cancer Research UK Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Oxford and directs the Cancer Research UK Molecular Oncology Laboratories at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. He is Director of the Cancer Research UK Medical Oncology Unit at the Churchill Hospital, is a Consultant Medical Oncologist and a Professorial Fellow of St Hugh's College Oxford. He is Head of the CRUK Oxford Cancer Centre and the Oxford NTRAC Centre.
Adrian is Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Cancer. His major laboratory interests involve the role of hypoxia in tumour biology and angiogenesis; and new drug development. He is investigating the roles of hypoxia inducible factor 1 and 2 and Notch signalling in angiogenesis and hypoxia induced cell death. He specialises in breast cancer and melanoma and has previously treated a wide range of tumour types including urological cancers, lung cancer, gynaecological cancers and haematological malignancy. He has published over 700 scientific papers and reviews.
Dr. Fiona Marshall
Fiona Marshall has 16 years experience in genomic based Drug Discovery. She spent 13 years at GlaxoSmithKline where she held a number of senior positions including Head of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Head of G-Protein coupled receptor research. She was Director of Discovery Pharmacology, Europe for Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
Fiona is currently lecturing in Pharmacology and Drug Discovery at the University of Cambridge and acts as an independent scientific consultant to a number of Biotech and venture capital companies. Dr Marshall currently chairs the BBSRC Biochemistry and Cell biology committee and is an advisor to the MRC and the Wellcome Trust. She has a BSc in Biochemistry from Bath University and a PhD in Neuroscience from Cambridge.
Professor Peter Wardman
Peter Wardman is head of the Cancer Research UK Free Radicals Research Group, Visiting Professor in Molecular Radiobiology at the University of Oxford and Deputy Director of the Gray Cancer Institute. He was recruited to the Gray laboratory in 1973 where he has been involved with a wealth of research exploring hypoxic radiosensitizers, hypoxia-selective drugs and diagnostic probes.
Professor Wardman has been a Member of the Association for Radiation Research since 1973, serving as Honorary Secretary, Vice-Chairman and Chairman, and Honorary Treasurer of the 8th International Congress of Radiation Research. He trained as a radiation chemist at the University of Leeds under the direction of Lord Dainton FRS and Arthur Salmon (receiving the H M Dawson Prize for Physical Chemistry in 1964), and was awarded the degrees of BSc (1964), PhD (1967) and DSc (1990).