Prof. Alberto Bardelli

SAB Chairman/ Oncology R&D/ Translational Medicine

Prof. Alberto Bardelli is Professor of Oncological Sciences at the University of Torino School of Medicine and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the Institute for Cancer research and Treatment in Turin, Italy.

Prof. Alberto Bardelli and his laboratory at the Institute for Cancer research and Treatment (IRCC) in Turin, Italy, have pioneered the generation of human X-MAN™ cell-lines harbouring subtle kinase mutations and their ability to accurately predict responses to appropriately targeted agents in patients.

Recent work from Alberto’s lab has had a transforming effect on current clinical practice in the field of personalised medicine. Prof. Bardelli and colleagues discovered that secondary K-Ras or B-Raf mutations in colon cancer impart resistance to novel EGFR-targeted therapies and now the EMEA (and soon the FDA) are mandating the compulsory genetic testing of all colon cancer patients prior to receiving such therapies.

A future focus of his lab is to define other resistance mechanisms in patients and find appropriately tailored drug combinations that target them.

Prof. Bardelli is married with a son and daughter and is the principle scientific advisor to Horizon Discovery Ltd.

Dr. Chris Torrance

SAB Member/ Oncology R&D

Dr. Chris Torrance has significant oncology research and development experience, including six years as a senior manager at Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company, Vernalis. His principle expertise lies is cancer cell biology and drug discovery. In this field, he has led project teams taking drug targets from inception through to hit identification, lead optimisation and into preclinical studies.

Chris is the co-inventor on a patent describing the use of “isogenic” X-MAN™ cell-lines to directly screen for agents that affect specific cancer pathways. As a result of this work, he has developed considerable expertise in the generation of X-MAN™ cell-lines and their application to drug discovery.

Chris is a co-author on nine, high-impact, peer-reviewed papers in the field of oncology and cancer drug discovery. Chris holds a PhD from East Carolina University, U.S.A. and completed a Post-Doctoral position in the world renowned oncology lab of Professor Bert Vogelstein (Johns Hopkins University) where he pioneered the use of X-MAN™ cancer models in high-throughput screening and drug discovery.

Chris is the principle founder of Horizon Discovery Ltd.

Prof. David Russell

SAB Member/ Gene Targeting/ Stem Cells

Prof. David Russell is Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Prof. Russell is as a Special Member of the SAB with responsibility for leading Horizon’s future thinking in human gene-targeting.

Prof. Russell pioneered the use of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors capable of introducing precise sequence changes at any endogenous chromosomal locus. This approach has revolutionized the speed at which human isogenic cell-lines with defined genetic properties can be generated. Prof. Russell will also lead the company on developing strategies for the application of AAV technology in the in-vitro stem-cell field.

Prof. Russell has published over 60 peer-review publications in the field of gene-targeting and gene therapy; is on the editorial board of four international peer-reviewed journals; and is a winner of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Prof. Eric Hendrickson

SAB Member/ DNA Repair/ Gene Targeting

Prof. Hendrickson is a Full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at the University of Minnesota of Medical School. For the past twenty-five years Dr. Hendrickson has pioneered studies in human somatic cells to investigate areas related to DNA double-strand break repair, including: telomeres, DNA recombination and gene targeting.

Prof. Hendrickson’s laboratory has focused heavily on the major pathway of DNA double-strand break repair in human cells: classic nonhomologous end joining (C-NHEJ). Dr. Hendrickson’s laboratory has made extensive use of rAAV technology to construct a panel of cell lines altered in all nine of the canonical C-NHEJ genes and then utilized these cell lines to investigate telomere maintenance, V(D)J recombination, chemotherapeutic drug efficacy and gene targeting in human cancer cells.

Prof. Hendrickson attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he obtained his B.S. degree in 1980. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1987. He then conducted postdoctoral research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, before embarking in 1992 on a career as an independent principal investigator. Dr. Hendrickson has published 45 primary research articles, 2 book chapters and 7 reviews. His laboratory is currently funded by three grants from the NIH and Dr. Hendrickson is very active as a reviewer for a large number of journals and as an ad hoc reviewer for NIH grant panels. Dr. Hendrickson has won many awards include being a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America Scholar.

Mr. Eric Rhodes

SAB Member/ Gene Editing

Eric joined Horizon at the start of 2012 and brings to us a background that includes over 15 years of gene regulation and gene editing experience. Prior to joining Horizon, Eric served as Director of Business Development at Sigma-Aldrich Corp. where he helped Sigma in launching its nuclease based gene editing platform.

Eric served for 10 years as Vice-President of Business Development and Alliance Management at Sangamo BioSciences where he was responsible for putting target validation and technology licensing deals in place with over 25 of the top pharma and biotech companies in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Eric has broad experience in growing small companies having participated in the successful launch of several start-ups in the San Francisco Bay Area. Eric has extensive molecular biology bench experience and earned his degree in Microbiology and Immunology from UC Berkeley.

Prof. Daniel Von Hoff

SAB Member/ Clinical Advisor/ Translational Medicine

Prof. Daniel Von Hoff is Physician in Chief, Senior Investigator, Director, Translational Research Division, Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and a pioneer in the development of new anticancer agents, both in the clinic and in the laboratory.

Prof. Von Hoff and his colleagues were involved in the beginning of the development of many of the agents now used routinely, including: mitoxantrone, fludarabine, paclitaxel, docetaxel, gemcitabine, irinotecan, nelarabine, capecitabine, lapatinib and others.

Prof. Von Hoff is leading the way in the areas of in vitro drug sensitivity testing and patient-stratified clinical trials to individualize treatment for cancer patients. Prof. Von Hoff is also the Editor in Chief of the world renowned scientific Journal, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.

Prof. Von Hoff has published more than 542 papers, 133 book chapters, and more than 950 abstracts.

Prof. Alan Ashworth

SAB Member/ Translational Medicine & Synthetic Lethality

Professor Alan Ashworth (FRS) is Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). He is also Professor of Molecular Biology and Leader of the Gene Function team in The Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the ICR.

Professor Ashworth completed his undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Biochemistry at Imperial College and achieved his PhD in Biochemistry at University College London. He joined the ICR in 1986 as a Post-Doctoral Scientist in the Section of Cell and Molecular Biology and in 1999 he was appointed the first Director of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre. The Centre is now recognised internationally and has more than 120 scientists and researchers working on aspects of the disease ranging from basic molecular and cellular biology through to translational research and clinical trials. Professor Ashworth’s Directorship ended in January 2011 when he took up the position of Chief Executive of the ICR.

Prof. Sabine Tejpar

SAB Member/ Translational Medicine

After a training in Internal medicine and Gastro Enterology and a Ph.D in the program of Molecular Oncology at the Center for Human Genetics, KULeuven, Prof. Sabine Tejpar became an Associate Professor in the Dept of Gastro Enterology, Digestive Oncology Unit, UZ Leuven.

Prof. Tejpar works as a part time clinician, part time researcher (Senior Clinical Investigator of the Fund for Scientific Research- Flanders (Belgium)), with a focus on basic and translational research in colorectal cancer. Prof. Tejpars main research projects involve prognostic markers in adjuvant colorectal cancer and predictive markers for efficacy of EGFR inhibition.

Prof. Tejpar has published over fifty peer-reviewed publications and is a; member of the EORTC, active in Board Gastrointestinal Group; Member of the EORTC NOCI Steering Committee; member of the Executive Committee of NOCI; member of the EORTC PAMM and Laboratory Research Division. Co-Chair of the EORTC-NCI-ASCO tutorial sessions and member of the AACR-NCI-EORTC planning committee. She is a member of advisory board of several pharmaceutical companies in relation to new drug development and translational research in gastrointestinal cancer.

Prof. Ben Ho Park

SAB Member/ Clinical Advisor/ Translational Medicine

Prof. Ben Ho Park is Associate Professor of Oncology and Associate Director of the Medical Oncology Fellowship Training Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Ben’s career blends a powerful mix of both basic and translational research in the field of cancer genetics; plus an active and distinguished role in patient care that is having a dramatic effect in the search for novel ‘targeted’ and ‘personalised’ cancer treatments.

Prof. Park and his colleagues recently studied the inner biochemical workings of isogenic (X-MAN) human cell-lines containing either a normal or mutant version of ‘PI3K’ and identified a novel therapeutic target called GSK3beta that is modulated by this mutant cancer gene in a significant subset of breast cancers.

Ben’s lab then found that an already approved drug to this target; called Lithium Chloride, which is used to treat bi-polar depression, also impairs the growth of human tumours containing mutant PI3K. Ben is now pioneering this ‘re-profiled’ drug into breast cancer clinical trials. The focus of his laboratory continues to define other mutated or altered genes responsible for breast cancer initiation and progression, as well as mutant genes that lead to chemo- and hormonal drug resistance.

Prof. Park is married with a daughter and was recently appointed as a key scientific and clinical advisor to Horizon Discovery Ltd.

Genentech Inc.

SAB Special Member

Founded more than 30 years ago, Genentech is a leading biotechnology company that discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes medicines to treat patients with serious or life-threatening medical conditions. The company, a wholly-owned member of the Roche Group, has headquarters in South San Francisco, California.

Genentech is a minor investor in Horizon Discovery Ltd. with whom it has an ongoing strategic commercial alliance. Genentech have a special “floating” SAB role providing scientists with relevant expertise to the content of Horizon SAB meetings.

For additional information about Genentech, please visit www.gene.com