Founders and Advisors
Our founders and advisors bring world-class expertise in DNA replication stress, translational biology and clinical development.
Co-Founders
Thanos Halazonetis
DDS, PhD – Co-Founder
Thanos Halazonetis holds a Dental Degree from the University of Athens and a PhD Degree in Genetics from Harvard University. He worked at Merck, Sharp & Dohme as a Research Fellow, before joining the faculty of the Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006, he joined the University of Geneva as Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology.
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His research has always focused on cancer; after studying the p53 tumor suppressor and the responses of cells to DNA double-strand breaks, his research has focused on oncogene-induced DNA replication stress and the pathways by which cells repair collapsed DNA replication forks. He is an elected member of EMBO and of Academia Europaea.
Sotirios K. Sotiriou
PhD – Co-Founder
Sotirios Sotiriou, PhD, is a Molecular Cancer Biologist. Previously, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and University of Geneva. Sotirios received his PhD degree with great distinction in Molecular Biology from the University of Geneva.
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Sotirios completed his undergraduate studies in Biological Applications and Technology at the University of Ioannina. His research interests focus on DNA repair, DNA replication, and the mechanisms underlying genomic instability in human cancers.
Dr. Founder One
Co-Founder
Dr. Founder One is a leading expert in DNA damage response biology and has pioneered research in PARG inhibition as a therapeutic strategy.
Dr. Founder Two
Co-Founder
Dr. Founder Two brings extensive experience in medicinal chemistry and small molecule drug discovery, with a focus on oncology targets.
Scientific and Clinical Advisors
Timothy Yap
MBBS, PhD, FRCP
Dr. Timothy Yap is a Medical Oncologist and Physician-Scientist based at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Professor in the Department for Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase I Program), and the Department ofThoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology. Dr. Yap is Vice President and Head of Clinical Development in the Therapeutics Discovery Division, a drug discovery biopharmaceutical division where drug discovery and clinical translation are seamlessly integrated.
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He is also the Associate Director of Translational Research in the Khalifa Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy, which is an integrated research and clinical trials program aimed at implementing personalized cancer therapy and improving patient outcomes. Dr. Yap’s main research focuses on the first-in-human and combinatorial development of molecularly targeted agents and immunotherapies, and their acceleration through clinical studies using novel predictive and pharmacodynamic biomarkers. His main interests include the targeting of the DNA damage response (DDR) with novel therapeutics, such as ATR, PARP1, WEE1, POLQ, USP1, PKMYT1, PARG, CHK1, ATM and DNA-PK inhibitors, next generation CDK2, CDK4 and CDK7-selective inhibitors, YAP/TEAD inhibitors, Werner helicase inhibitors, SMARCA2 degraders, as well as the development of novel immunotherapeutics.
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.
Christopher Lord
PhD
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 focusses on exploiting genetic concepts such as synthetic lethality to identify new approaches to treating cancer and to understand the variable effectiveness of existing treatments.
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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 and to identify novel synthetic lethal approaches that target hard-to-treat cancers. The impact of the work led by Chris 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.
Prof. C. Lord
Scientific Advisor
To be confirmed
Prof. Lord is a world-renowned expert in DNA damage response and synthetic lethality in cancer therapy.
Prof. T. Yap
Clinical Advisor
To be confirmed
Prof. Yap is a leading clinical researcher in DNA damage response therapies with extensive experience in oncology clinical development.