The Scientific Advisory Board

Professor Mark Caulfield

Professor of Clinical Pharmacology
Queen Mary, University of London

Mark graduated in Medicine in 1984 from the London Hospital Medical College and trained in Clinical Pharmacology at St Bartholomew’s Hospital where he developed a research programme in the molecular genetics of hypertension. He has been National Co-ordinator of the MRC British Genetics of Hypertension (BRIGHT) Study on behalf of 5 UK Universities. He is currently the Director of the William Harvey Research Institute and the London Genome Centre, Bart’s and the London. The London Genome Centre now underpins over 40 programmes of research.

Professor Tim Aitman

Professor of Clinical and Molecular Genetics
Imperial College London

Tim is Professor of Clinical and Molecular Genetics at Imperial and Head of the Clinical Sciences Centre Physiological Genomics and Medicine Group. He founded the CSC Microarray Centre in October 2000. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Academy of Medical Sciences, and is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Lipid Research and Mammalian Genome. His research achievements include the genetic dissection of insulin resistance in rats and humans. More recently he has used global expression profiling and linkage analysis to understand better the genes and metabolic pathways leading to the common syndromes of insulin resistance and has identified copy number variation in the Fcgr3 gene as a cause of autoimmunity in rats and humans.

Professor Alan Ashworth

Professor of Molecular Biology
The Institute of Cancer Research

Alan studied for his BSc in Chemistry and Biochemistry at Imperial College, London, before completing his PhD in Biochemistry at University College London. Since 1986, he has worked in the Chester Beatty Laboratories at The Institute of Cancer Research, London and was a member of the team that discovered the BRCA2 gene in 1995. In 1997, Alan was appointed Professor of Molecular Biology and became Head of the Section of Gene Function and Regulation at the ICR. He was appointed Director of the Breakthrough Research Centre in August 1999. He is an elected member of EMBO and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Professor Nick Carter

Professor Of Developmental Biochemistry
St George's, University of London

Nick is currently Professor of Developmental Biochemistry and Head of Clinical Developmental Sciences at St George’s, University of London. He has previously held appointments in the USA, Sweden and in the UK at the London Hospital Medical College and the University of Cambridge. His current research interests include cardiovascular genetics, in particular complex disease phenotypes, inherited ion-channelopathies and the application of gene expression in the early diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Professor Aroon Hingorani

Professor of Clinical Pharmacology
University College London

Aroon Hingorani is a Reader in Clinical Pharmacology, Therapeutics and a British Heart Foundation Senior Research Fellow at the University College London. He trained in Medicine at Oxford and Guy’s Hospital, London and works as a Consultant in General Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Aroon’s research interests are in the causes and prevention of cardiovascular disease. He is particularly interested in the potential uses of genetic information to improve public health; primarily in the use of genetic studies as a type of natural randomized trial to validate drug targets.

Professor Shirley Hodgson

Professor of Cancer Genetics
St George's, University of London

Since 2003 Shirley has been Professor of Cancer Genetics at St. George's, University of London. Prior to this she was a Reader in Clinical Genetics at Guy’s Hospital, King’s College London and a consultant in Clinical Genetics at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. She has run the Cancer Genetics Service at Guy’s and St. George’s, serving the South East Thames and South West Thames regions respectively. She has a research portfolio of translational research in cancer genetics which is largely funded by CRUK. She is currently active in international committees in Clinical and Cancer Genetics (Cancer Genetics Group, NCRI colorectal subgroup).

Professor Ellen Solomon

Head of Medical and Molecular Genetics
King's College London

Ellen is Prince Philip Professor of Human Genetics and Head of the Division of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at King's College London. She is also Research Dean of the School of Medicine. Following her doctorate, she trained in human clinical and molecular genetics, first at UCSF and then at Oxford. Following this, she developed research interests in cancer and cancer genetics at the ICRF, London. She has worked on both colon and breast cancer genetics, and on acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL). More recently, she has been building a strong translational research portfolio for the Division, focusing on strengths in cancer genetics, neurogenetics, complex disease genetics and dermatology in close collaboration with the newly instituted NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. She is a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences and EMBO, a former council member of HUGO and Vice-Chair of the Council for the British Society of Human Genetics.

Professor Brendan Wren

Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Brendan trained as a physical chemist studying the effect of ionising radiation on the atomic structure of DNA at Leicester University. In 1985 he moved to the Medical Microbiology Department at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, to work on bacterial pathogens. In 1999 he moved to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he is currently researching the molecular characterisation of enteric pathogens. These pathogens include C.jejuni, H.pylori, C.difficile, and Yersinia. Current research focuses on glycosylation in bacterial pathogens, glycoprospecting and glycoengineering, comparative phylogenomics to identify virulence factors and to study the evolution of virulence and systems biology of host pathogen interactions.