Scientific Advisory Board (SAB)
The CDP Advisory Board (SAB) comprise:
Professor Herbie Newell (Chairman)
Professor of Cancer Therapeutics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and Executive Director of Clinical and Translational Research and Research Strategy, Cancer Research UK
David R (Herbie) Newell is Past Chairman of the British Association for Cancer Research (BACR), and the Laboratory Research Division and the Pharmacology and Molecular Mechanisms Group of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer.
Professor Newell is principal investigator on active grants with a value in excess of £3M, holds over 10 active patents relating to new anti-cancer compounds, and 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 is the Past Chairman of the Cancer Research UK New Agents Committee (NAC), and has served on the Cancer Research UK Programme Grants, Clinical and Translational Research, Translational Research in Clinical Trials and Phase I/II Clinical Trials Committees. He has acted as a consultant for international and national Pharma and Biotech companies including: Astex Technology, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Biotica, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Novartis, OSI Pharmaceuticals and Xenova.
Professor Jim Cassidy
Professor of Oncology, University of Glasgow and Beatson Oncology Centre
Jim Cassidy graduated in Medicine from Glasgow University in 1981. He then underwent Oncology training in Wales, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Part of this training was as a Cancer Research UK Senior Fellow in Pharmacology, during which time he undertook a degree in Clinical Pharmacology and published his MD. thesis on "Drug delivery systems in cancer".
He has a longstanding clinical interest in colorectal cancer and has been Principal Investigator of several large scale RCTs in this disease. He has published over 180 peer reviewed articles on aspects of colorectal cancer, molecular determinants of drug action and novel therapeutics. He serves on the editorial board of several high impact journals, and is Clinical Editor of the British Journal of Cancer (BJC).
Previously Professor of Oncology at Aberdeen University, his present post is at the Beatson Oncology Centre and laboratories in Glasgow. He is academic head of the Cancer Research UK Centre for Applied Pharmacology and Director of the Trials Unit. He is also Head of the West of Scotland Cancer Research Network, research convener for the University of Glasgow cancer division and head of Cancer Clinical Trials Unit for Scotland (CaCTUS) which is the only National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) accredited trials unit in Scotland. The trials unit performs about 90 clinical trials at any time with about nine of these being Phase 1 studies of novel agents. Most of these include aspects of translational science within them with samples being analysed through a dedicated Analytical Services Unit (which works to GLP standards).
Gordon Jayson
Professor of Medical Oncology, Christie Hospital NHS Trust, Manchester
Gordon Jayson qualified in Medicine at the University of Oxford. His subsequent medical and oncology training took place in Manchester and the Christie Hospital. Following a PhD in heparan sulfate biology, he has conducted post-doctoral research that aims to translate the new data from heparan sulfate biology into the clinic. His current programme of work, described above, is directed at the laboratory development of novel oligosaccharides as anti-angiogenic agents and the early and late clinical trial evaluation of this class of drugs. The latter programme aims to identify serological and imaging based biomarkers that will identify the patients who are most likely to benefit from this these agents and which will be used to underpin the development of combination regimens of biological agents. This work is largely focused on ovarian cancer, the disease that Professor Jayson looks after in Christie Hospital.
Dr Alan Munro
Chairman of Cancer Research UK's New Agents Committee
Alan Munro graduated in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) at Cambridge in 1960 where he stayed on for his PhD. in molecular biology. In January 1963 he was appointed to a University Post in the Department of Biochemistry. Following a year's sabbatical leave at the Salk Institute in California, his research interests have been in the field of Immunology working for three years in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (1968-1971), and then from 1971 at the Department of Pathology in Cambridge where he became ultimately Head of the Immunology Division of the Department.
In 1976-1977 he was the visiting Boerhave Professor in the Immuno-Haematology Department at the University of Leiden. In 1989, after a year's sabbatical leave working part of the time at Cell Tech Ltd, he left the University of Cambridge and was co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cantab Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company based in Cambridge specialising in therapeutic vaccines and other modifiers of the immune response. While at Cantab he was responsible for all stages of trials using monoclonal antibodies and a therapeutic anti-cancer vaccine based on Vaccinia and HPV. In 1995 he left the Company and became the Master of Christ's College in Cambridge, a post he held for seven years.
During this time and since leaving the College he has been a consultant to venture capital funds on the commercial application of immunology, as well as being a Director of two biotech companies - Lorantis Ltd. and currently Paradigm Pharmaceuticals Ltd. He has also been a Trustee of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Institute at Babraham outside Cambridge, and of the Sanger Centre at Hinxton. He is currently Chairman of Paradigm Ltd. and a Director of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. He has recently been appointed Chairman of the Cancer Research UK New Agents Committee (NAC), and also serves on the Cancer Research UK Clinical and Translational Research Committee (CTRC).
Christian Ottensmeier
Professor in Experimental Cancer Medicine,
University of Southampton School of Medicine
Christian Ottensmeier is Professor in Experimental Cancer Medicine, and CRUK Senior Clinical Research Fellow. He graduated in Münster, Germany and began his specialist training there. After a 3 year training fellowship in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, he moved to Southampton. He completed his oncology training and also undertook his PhD here. He has been a consultant in medical oncology since 2000. Clinically his interests are thoracic malignancies and melanoma, and he has co-developed a number of national NCRI studies in lung cancer. He manages a broad and active clinical trials portfolio in both lung cancer and melanoma. He is a member of the NCRI melanoma group and until recently also of the lung group and the translational studies group.
Christian leads the Experimental Cancer Centre in Southampton and the early translation of immunotherapeutic strategies into the clinic is his core interest. This portfolio includes single centre and multicentre studies.
The overarching aims of his laboratory group are the preclinical development and early phase clinical testing of strategies to induce anti-tumour immune responses in patients with B cell malignancies and solid tumours. This has led to three linked but distinct areas of investigation: Early Phase Clinical Testing with immunological evaluation of the effect of the intervention in the laboratory, Assay Development and Validation, Mechanistic Studies for further preclinical vaccine development with the aim of completing the loop back into the clinic.
