Speaker biographies - Day One

Jonathan Waxman is Professor of Oncology at Imperial College, London, specialising in the treatment of prostate, bladder and kidney cancer. He is a clinician who has helped develop new treatments for cancer, which are now part of standard practice. Professor Waxman directs a clinical trials drug development team and a laboratory research group comprising 31 scientists. He is the author of around 400 research papers and chapters, eleven books on cancer and author of a medical negligence textbook. He is also a novelist and his new novel, "The Elephant in the Room", will be published in 2011.

He founded and is Life President of Prostate Cancer UK. He helped establish an All Party Parliamentary Group to improve cancer treatment and research throughout the UK. He has also developed and led successful and unsuccessful media campaigns to rationalise cancer treatments and change government health policy.

Dr Justin Sturge is a Principal Investigator and Lecturer who heads the Metastasis Team in the Division of Cancer, Department of Surgery & Cancer, Imperial College London. He completed his PhD studies at Imperial College London in 1998. His post-doctoral research was conducted at The Randall Centre for Molecular Mechanisms of Cell Function, King's College London (1998-2001) and the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research London (2001-2006). He joined Imperial College London as Lecturer in April 2006, where his research is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of prostate cancer metastasis and translating these findings to the clincial setting.

Dr de Bono MD FRCP MSc PhD was appointed in 2003 as Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology in the Section of Medicine at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research, which form Europe's largest Comprehensive Cancer Centre. He plays a leading role in the clinical drug development Phase I trials program at the Royal Marsden Hospital. Johann is also a key translational clinician in the Centre for Cancer Therapeutics and plays a major role in the Academic Urology team treating patients with castration resistant prostate cancer. He has a particular interest in the rational design of molecular targeted therapies for prostate cancer.

Between 2000 and 2003 he researched and developed new anti-cancer drugs in the USA at the Institute for Drug Development and the University of Texas Health Science Centre in San Antonio. Dr de Bono has been involved in the development of over 50 novel agents over the last 5-years, several of which have now been approved. He is currently running over 30 early clinical trials.

Dr Catherine Nobes studied biochemistry at University College London before going on to complete a PhD in bioenergetics at the University of Cambridge with Dr Martin Brand.

As a post-doc in Alan Hall's lab at University College London, she identified a cellular role for the small GTPase Cdc42 in triggering the formation of actin-rich filopodial extensions from the cell periphery and in 1997 she was awarded a Lister Institute Research Fellowship, enabling her to develop her own research interests, including the mechanisms underlying how cell migrations are guided through repulsive Eph/ephrin interactions.

In 2001 Catherine was awarded an MRC Senior Research Fellowship to establish a research group at University College London looking at the functions of Eph receptors and ephrins in guiding cell migrations. Eight years ago, Catherine and her team moved to the University of Bristol. During the tenure of her fellowship her team demonstrated a novel mechanism for cell repulsion by showing that Rac regulates endocytosis of Eph receptor/ephrin complexes that facilitates cell-cell separation during cell repulsion (Nat Cell Biol, 2003). More recently her interest in Eph/ephrin regulation of contact inhibition of locomotion, and why cancer cells are defective in this behaviour, has lead to an investigation of prostate cancer metastasis and whether Eph receptors may be novel biomarkers of aggressive prostate cancer (Nat Cell Biol, 2010). Catherine's team continue to focus on how Eph-ephrin signalling regulates cell migration and cell-cell interactions in the context of cancer and wound healing.

While Dr Jones has worked in a number of areas of biology, most of her research has focused on the importance of the inflammatory response in a range of diseases ranging from differences in inflammatory cytokine release between the anaphylatoxins C3a and C5a to cAMP-activated signalling in prostate cancer cell lines. Dr Jones graduated from the University of Manchester with a first class honours degree in Microbiology and Biotechnology and the Intercytex prize for graduating top of Biological Sciences. She then moved to the University of Glasgow to join the Wellcome Trust PhD programme for Molecular Functions in Disease where she discovered a love of intracellular cell signalling. Following three short lab rotations in areas including cell signalling, bacteriology and virology, she undertook a PhD with Dr Tim Palmer to investigate cAMP-mediated modulation of intracellular signalling pathways in prostate cancer. Following completion of my PhD in September 2009, Dr Jones has been working as a post-doctoral research to formulate novel vaccines for whooping cough but is now looking to rejoin the prostate cancer field.

Dr Kypta graduated in Biochemistry at Oxford University and was awarded his PhD from his studies at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. Following his postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco, he returned to the UK on a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship and was appointed as team leader at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London. He joined Imperial College London in 2001, where he works on the roles of Wnts, Wnt antagonists and GSK-3 in prostate cancer. He also heads a team at CIC bioGUNE, a non-profit research institute in Bilbao, Spain.

Dr Amanda Swain is a team leader in the Division of Cancer Biology at the Institute of Cancer Research. She obtained her PhD from Tufts University in Boston and did her postdoctoral training in developmental biology at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London. She established her research team at the Institute of Cancer Research in 1998. She became part of the NCRI South of England Prostate Cancer Collaborative in 2001 and set up a programme to study the molecular and cellular events that lead to the formation of the prostate and how these events contribute to tumour formation and progression.

Professor Terence Rabbitts worked in Cambridge from 1973-2006 in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology where he was joint Head of the Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry together with the Nobel Laureate César Milstein. He was the Director of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine from 2007 to 2010. He has also been awarded the Colworth Medal of the Biochemical Society and the CIBA Prize and was elected as a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) (1981), a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) (1987) and a Founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) (1998).

His scientific achievements are in the elucidation of the organisation, diversity and rearrangement of human antibody genes. He defined the linkage of antibody and T cell receptor genes with cancer-specific chromosomal translocations and identified families of new oncogenes including the LMO2 and HOX11 families and discovered a first fusion gene in a solid tumour (FUS-CHOP). Using a combination of in vivo models and biochemical studies, Professor Rabbitts has derived a comprehensive model for LMO2-dependent T cell acute leukaemia in man that encompasses the concept of LMO2 as canonical master regulator and the importance of protein-protein interactions in cancer.

He has pioneered the methods of cDNA cloning widely used for recombinat protein production and in molecular biology and methods for chimaeric antibodies (with M. Neuberger). He has developed models of chromosomal translocations including the first knock-in using homologous recombination and de novo translocator models. He has used human antibody fragments to develop lead therapeutic molecules against resident proteins inside cells and specifically to block protein-protein interactions in vivo.

Professor Clarke is based at the Cardiff School of Biosciences where he is Director of the Cardiff Cancer Research UK Centre and of The European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute. His main interest is in the molecular basis of cancer, particularly in the early stages and his research team has expertise in modelling intestinal, breast and prostate tumours. His group has a track record in preclinical testing of new drugs for breast cancer, which is now being extended to intestinal and prostate tumours.

Dr Richard Bryant graduated from the University of Sheffield Medical School in 1998 and undertook his Basic Surgical Training in Sheffield. He was subsequently awarded an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2004 and undertook full time basic science prostate cancer research leading to the award of a PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2008. Under the joint supervision of Dr Vincent Cunliffe and Professor Freddie Hamdy he identified mechanisms underlying the observation that overexpression of the Polycomb Group protein EZH2 was associated with prostate cancer progression. He is currently an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Urology at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences at the University of Oxford, undertaking higher urological surgery training and performing basic science and translational prostate cancer research.

After completing his PhD in Moscow/Montreal Universities (2000-2003) Dr. Pshezhetskiy has carried out post-doctoral research in Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse (2003-2005), CNRS Institute of Structural Biology and Pharmacology, Toulouse (2005-2006) and McGill University, Canada (2005-2006).

In 2006 Dr Pshezhetskiy has joined the Imperial College as a Research Fellow/Head of the Tumour Microenvironment and Chemotherapy group. Dr Pshezhetskiy's research is focused on identifying the involvement of the sphingolipid signalling in cancer pathogenesis and inflammatory response.

Craig Robson obtained his PhD at Newcastle University. He was then a Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford. He returned to Newcastle University as a Lecturer, and he is now Professor of Molecular Urology at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research. His research interests include the regulation of androgen receptor signaling and the roles of transcriptional co-regulators in prostate cancer.

Professor Jack Cuzick is head of the Centre for Epidemiology, Mathematics and Statistics at Cancer Research UK in London. He is also John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary, University of London. He holds a PhD in Mathematics and has previously worked at Oxford University and Columbia University, New York.

His current interests are in cancer epidemiology and clinical trials, with special interest in prevention and screening. He is currently Chairman of the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study (IBIS) Steering Group, the Independent Statistician for the ATAC trial and is also involved in studies on the use of HPV assays for cervical screening, the use of flexible sigmoidoscopy for colorectal cancer screening and markers for the behaviour of early prostate cancer. He is the statistician for several major breast cancer trials and maintains an active interest in developing new statistical methodology, especially in the area of adjustments for non-compliance and cross-over, and multi-arm clinical trials.

Professor Cuzick is also currently the President of the International Society of Cancer Prevention and is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Statistical Society, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. In 2007, he was chosen by Thompson Scientific as one of the twelve hottest researchers in all of science. He is the author of more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and has published in all the major medical journals.

Dr Ian Mills graduated from the University of Oxford (1992-1996) and undertook his PhD studies at the University of Liverpool (1996-2000). He then joined the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge for his postdoctoral research (2000-2003). In 2003 Dr Mills joined Professor David Neal to establish the Uro-Oncology Research Group in the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, focussing on androgen signalling and mechanisms of castrate resistance in prostate cancer. In 2006 the group then moved into the newly established Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute.

Last year Dr Mills moved to Norway to become a Research Group Leader at the Centre for Molecular Medicine (Norway) at the University of Oslo, one of three molecular medicine centres founded in partnership with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). He maintains close research links with the UK through a Visiting Scientist position at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute and an Honorary Senior Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge.

Dr Colin Hay graduated from the University of Aberdeen where he studied biochemistry, and obtained his PhD from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He has always worked in medically related fields and carried out research into haemophilia and diabetes before focussing on prostate cancer. His current research at the University of Aberdeen centres on androgen receptor signalling at both the level of receptor gene expression and receptor protein structure/function. Of particular interest is elucidating the role of point mutations in the receptor which are prevalent in hormone refractory and metastatic tumours.

Dr Jason Webber completed his PhD investigating renal fibrosis, at the Institute of Nephrology, Cardiff University, in 2009. He is now a Research Fellow in the Exosome Biology Group, led by Dr Aled Clayton, Cardiff University. His research interests focus on the delivery of TGFb1, or other growth factors, by cancer exosomes and the impact of this on the prostatic tumour microenvironment.

Dr Charlotte Bevan joined Imperial College in 1999 as head of the Androgen Signalling Group in the Department of Oncology, SORA. The aims of the group are to investigate the mechanisms of signalling via the androgen receptor in normal prostate and prostate cancer and how these are altered during prostate cancer progression. Since 2008 Dr Bevan has been Non-Clinical Head of the newly-formed Section of Molecular Cell Biology. She is also a member of the Postgraduate Education Committee for SORA, with joint responsibility for Oncology PhD and MD students.

Professor Gail Risbridger is a NH&MRC Fellow, a career academic and researcher who has spent over 20 years understanding the endocrinology of male reproductive tract organs, especially the testis and prostate gland. After graduating from Monash University she worked in teaching departments at the University, until becoming a founding member of the Monash Institute of Medical Research (MIMR). She currently heads the Prostate and Breast Cancer Research Group in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at Monash University and leads an internationally recognised research team of investigators working on prostate cancer and Andrology related projects. Professor Risbridger also currently holds the position of Deputy Dean - Special Projects and Chair for Research, Centres & Institutes.

She is one of Australia's leading prostate cancer researchers, with particular interest in the biology of stromal-epithelial cell interactions in normal and tumour tissue using tissue recombination, animal and human specimens. She pioneered the use of stem cells for recombination studies combining stem cell biology with endocrinology.

She established academic and industry collaborations to build infrastructure to underpin the national research effort in Australian Prostate Cancer Research, including a National tissue bank with Victorian State Government informatics support. She has advisory roles in Andrology Australia and the Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men's Health. Since 2003, she has received over $22.9 million in National and International grant funding related to prostate cancer. Her awards include an International Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, British Endocrine Society Asia-Oceania Medal and Honorary Life Member of Endocrine Society of Australia.