Expert scientific guidance
Professor Tim Elliott - Kidani Chair of Immune-oncology, University of Oxford
Professor Elliott holds the Kidani Chair of Immune-oncology at the University of Oxford. His research encompasses themes within the biology of antigen processing and presentation and immunity to tumours.
He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the Academy of Medical Sciences; Chair of the CRUK Expert Review Panel for Cancer Immunology and member of Discovery Research Committee; and Editor-in-chief of the British Society for Immunology journal Immunotherapy Advances.
IO Portfolio Scientific Lead and Principal Scientist at LifeArc, Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst
Lone Friis is Principal Scientist and IO Portfolio Scientific Lead at LifeArc, Stevenage, UK. She also sits on Avvinity’s Board as board observer.
Lone has an MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Copenhagen and obtained a PhD at University of Oxford. Her PhD was conducted at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine and focused on fundamental T cell biology, autoimmunity and recombinant protein technology.
After these studies, Lone moved to a role in drug discovery within LifeArc, where she has gained over 10 years of experience in therapeutic antibody discovery with a focus on development of anti-cancer/immuno-oncology drugs.
Professor Michelle Garrett - Professor of Cancer Therapeutics in the School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury
Michelle Garrett is Professor of Cancer Therapeutics and Faculty Director of Medical Sciences at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
She received her PhD from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) London, undertook post-doctoral research at Yale Medical School, USA and in 1994 she moved to Onyx Pharmaceuticals, USA, where she was part of a collaboration with Pfizer, which led to the discovery of the CDK4 inhibitor Palbociclib (IBRANCE®).
She returned to the ICR in 1999 to a group leader position, specialising in the discovery and development of novel small molecule cancer therapeutics, focussed on signal transduction pathways and cell cycle checkpoints. Whilst at the ICR, Michelle became a Reader in Cancer Therapeutics and Head of Biology for the CRUK Cancer Therapeutics Unit.
In 2014 Michelle joined the School of Biosciences at the University of Kent where her research focusses on new cancer drug discovery and cancer drug resistance. She currently has three cancer drugs in clinical development, the AKT inhibitor AZD5363 (Capivasertib), the AGC kinase inhibitor AT13148 and SRA737(CCT245737), which targets the CHK1 kinase.
Dr Anthony Kong - Reader and Honorary Consultant Clinical Oncologist, King’s College, London
Dr Kong is a reader at King’s College London and an honorary NHS consultant clinical oncologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals NHS trust. He was previously a clinical senior lecturer at University of Birmingham and a clinician scientist at University of Oxford.
He has been a principal investigator for numerous early and late clinical trials in breast cancer and head and neck cancers, including immunotherapy trials.
Anthony is conducting translational research in relation to resistance mechanisms and biomarkers of various HER/ErbB inhibitors and immunotherapy in breast and head and neck cancers.
Dr Jon Moore - Co-Chair of the Avvinity Therapeutics Scientific Advisory Board
Jon is co-Chair of the Avvinity Therapeutics Scientific Advisory Board. He brings over 15 years of experience from some of the leading biotech companies in the UK. He has a track record of success in early-stage drug discovery against first in class targets, the application of gene editing to drug discovery, developing new therapeutic technology platforms and in business development.
He is an Operating Partner at Advent Life Sciences and previously he was CSO of Horizon Discovery where he co-founded Avvinity Therapeutics. Prior to that, he was Head of Biology at Vernalis Research.
Jon is originally a biochemist and cell biologist with a PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and extensive postdoctoral experience in academia including 4 years with Nobel Laureate, Tim Hunt.
Professor Josep Tabernero - Director of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology and Professor of UVic-UCC
Josep Tabernero holds MD and PhD degrees from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, and he is currently Head of the Medical Oncology Department at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Director of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and Professor of Medicine at UVic-UCC. He has been Principal Investigator of several Phase I pharmacodynamic studies and translational projects with tumor-directed targeted therapies and immune-based therapies.
Dr. Tabernero serves on the Editorial Boards of various top tier journals including Annals of Oncology, ESMO Open, Cancer Discovery, Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer Treatment Reviews, and Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. He has (co) authored approximately 500 peer-reviewed papers with an H-Index of 95.
He was the President (2018 – 2019) and is currently the Past President (2020-2021) of the European Society for Medical Oncology´s (ESMO), and also serves on its Public Policy as well as Cancer Medicines Committees. He is also member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He has also been a member of the Educational and Scientific Committees of ESMO, ECCO, ASCO, AACR, AACR/NCI/EORTC, ASCO Gastrointestinal, TAT and WCGIC meetings.
Dr Mike Westby - CEO, Centauri Therapeutics Ltd
Mike is Chair of the Avvinity Therapeutics Scientific Advisory Board. He has 15 years’ experience in Pharma R&D, having worked for both Roche and Pfizer. Mike has worked across the Research and Development spectrum and whilst at Pfizer he helped successfully develop a novel therapy for treatment of HIV infection.
Mike also headed up Pfizer’s Opportunities for Partnership in Medicine (OPM) Research Unit and was a member of the Research Leadership Team at Pfizer’s R&D UK Laboratories.
Mike trained in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at University of Durham, obtained his PhD at Warwick University and then completed a postdoctoral research fellow at St George’s Hospital Medical School.
Dr Robert Wilkinson - Senior Director, Oncology R&D, AstraZeneca, Cambridge
Robert leads an oncology research group based Granta Park and oversees pre-clinical oncology biologics research ranging from target identification to candidate drug selection and IND enabling support. Activities focus on utilising the latest biotherapeutic technologies incl. mono- and bispecific antibodies, novel protein mimetics, oncolytic virotherapy and oligonucleotides. Robert has made significant contributions in the discovery of several novel immuno-oncology (IO) therapies including FDA-approved Imfinzi® (durvalumab), an anti-PD-L1 antibody used in the treatment of lung and bladder cancer. Other IO molecules discovered and or developed by his group include: MEDI1873, a GITRL agonist; MEDI9197 (in partnership with 3M), a TLR7/8 agonist; MEDI1191, IL-12 mRNA (in partnership with Moderna); MEDI5752, a PD-1/CTLA-4 bispecific antibody; MEDI5395 (IL-12) and MEDI9253 (GM-CSF), two Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) based oncolytic virotherapies.
Robert received a PhD in Experimental Immunology from The University of Birmingham Medical School and then spent several years within Cancer Research Technology (the drug discovery arm of CRUK), where he established a tumour immunotherapy group. Robert has co-authored over 70 peer reviewed scientific papers on topics including drug discovery, immunotherapy.