New cancer institute director appointed
Professor Laurence Patterson has been formally appointed as the new director of the University of Bradford's new multi-million pound state-of-the-art Institute of Cancer Therapeutics (ICT).
Professor Laurence Patterson has been formally appointed as the new director of the University of Bradford's new multi-million pound state-of-the-art Institute of Cancer Therapeutics (ICT).
A Professor of medicinal chemistry, he was previously head of the department of Pharmaceutical and Biological Chemistry at the University of London's School of Pharmacy and has spent several years in the pharmaceutical industry. The design, synthesis and evaluation of drugs that selectively kill cancer cells has been the research goal of Professor Patterson for 20 years.
He was responsible for discovering that DNA binding of certain agents can be metabolically controlled, and his research led to the invention of AQ4N as a bio-reductive antitumour agent, which is now in Phase I clinical trials. His work in tumour-specific drug activation continues and has resulted in 13 patents to date.
As part of his new role, he will be taking a new approach to the discovery of new medicines: 'I want to focus on an in-house discovery programme which is geared mainly towards agents which are toxic to cancers but not toxic to the patient. With certain medicines and treatments patients cannot be given sufficient dose to create a benefit because of the damage it can cause. What we need to find is new medicines which will cut down on the side-effects, such as nausea and loss of hair yet will be damaging to the tumour or the cancer.'