MCRC Director's Lecture: Professor Ashok Venkitaraman
| Dates: | 27 March 2019 |
|---|
| Times: | 16:15 - 17:15 |
|---|
| What is it: | Lecture |
|---|
| Organiser: | Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health |
|---|
| Who is it for: | University staff, Current University students |
|---|
| Speaker: | Professor Ashok Venkitaraman |
|---|
|
Join Professor Rob Bristow at the Oglesby Cancer Research Building for the next seminar in his MCRC Director's Lecture series.
Title: "Intervention in cancer through the tumour suppressive mechanisms that control genome stability"
The lecture will be followed by drinks and nibbles.
Speaker biography
Ashok Venkitaraman is the Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer Research at the University of Cambridge, and directs the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cancer Unit there. He learnt and practiced medicine at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, before his Ph.D. with Sir Marc Feldmann at the University of London. After his postdoctoral work there with Michael Neuberger, Ashok established his research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, prior to his election as the inaugural holder of the Zoellner Professorship.
Ashok’s research has contributed fundamentally to our understanding of how human cancer is suppressed by genes that maintain the integrity of the genome. He discovered how mutations affecting the breast cancer suppressor BRCA2 and related genes cause genomic instability provoking carcinogenesis, helping to explain cancer predisposition in mutation carriers, and providing scientific foundations for new therapies, by illuminating fundamental mechanisms that control chromosome repair, duplication and segregation. To translate his work to clinical impact, Ashok has pioneered new technologies that enable the precise identification and validation of therapeutic targets, leading to the spin-out by Cambridge University of biotechnology firms based on his research.
Ashok’s work has been recognised by international awards, and appointments to the advisory boards of leading academic and commercial organisations. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, London in 2001, and a member of the EMBO academy, Heidelberg, in 2004.
Speaker
Professor Ashok Venkitaraman
Organisation: MRC Cancer Unit, Cambridge
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Lecture theatre
Oglesby Cancer Research Building
555 Wilmslow Road
Withington
