Scientific Advisors

Professor Sydney Brenner, Nobel laureate

Sydney Brenner is a distinguished professor at the Salk Institute and one of the past century’s leading pioneers in genetics and molecular biology. Among his many notable discoveries, Brenner established the existence of messenger RNA and demonstrated how the order of amino acids in proteins is determined. He also conducted pioneering work with the roundworm, a model organism now widely used to study genetics. His research with Caenorhabditis elegans garnered insights into aging, nerve cell function and apoptosis. Brenner is the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and The Albert Lasker Medical Research Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. Brenner earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at Oxford University, England. He has been an advisor to Mr. Snyder’s companies since 1982.

Brian Druker, M.D.

Dr. Brian Druker is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Director of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Cancer Institute, and JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research at OHSU. His role in the development of Gleevec® (imatinib) and Gleevec’s application in the clinic have resulted in numerous awards for Dr. Druker including the Warren Alpert Prize from Harvard Medical School, the American Society of Hematology’s Dameshek Prize, the American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor, the Kettering Prize from General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, and the David A. Karnofsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.  He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2003, the American Association of Physicians in 2006, and the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. Dr. Druker received his BS degree in chemistry and his M.D. from the University of California, San Diego; he completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital associated with the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and completed a fellowship in medical oncology at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In September 2009, Dr. Druker received the prestigious Lasker Award.

Prof Sir David Lane, FRS, FRSE, FRCPath

Professor Sir David Lane is best known for his role in arguably the most important cancer gene discovery ever made when he identified p53, a protein believed to play a role in as many as half of all human cancers. Professor Lane serves as the Executive Director of the IMCB in Singapore. He has won many international prizes and is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). He is also a Fellow of the UK’s premier scientific academy, the Royal Society; the Royal Society of Edinburgh; the Royal College of Pathologists and the Academy of Medical Sciences.  For his contributions to cancer research, the Queen of England knighted Professor Lane at Buckingham Palace in 2000. Professor Lane received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. from University College London, England.

Sir Philip Cohen, FRS, FRSE

Sir Philip Cohen has served as a Faculty member at the University of Dundee since 1971 where his research has been devoted to studying the role of protein phosphorylation in cell regulation and human disease. Sir Philip was elected a Fellow of both The Royal Society of London and The Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1984, was knighted by the Queen in 1998 and has received honorary doctorates from five Universities. Philip is also the Director of the recently announced £10million Scottish Institute of Cell Signaling, Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit and Co-Director of the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT) the UK’s largest collaboration between a basic research institution and the pharmaceutical industry. It is widely regarded as a model for how industry and academia should interact, for which it received a Queen’s Anniversary Award for Higher Education in 2006. In 2008, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for his excellence in original scientific research. Philip Cohen received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. from University College London, England.