An experienced team for a globally-focused life sciences company

Professor Alexander Eggermont brings more than 37 years of experience in oncology, specialising in clinical immunotherapy, melanoma, sarcoma, drug development and translational tumour immunology.

Professor Eggermont is the Chief Scientific Officer of Princess Máxima Center for Paediatric Oncology, a Professor of Clinical and Translational Immunotherapy at University Medical Center, Utrecht, Netherlands and is the Coordinator of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Program Deutsche KrebsHilfe, Germany and on the Board of Directors of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Munich, the Technical University Munich and the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich Germany. Strategic Advisor for DKFZ-NCT Heidelberg for National Center for Tumors Program, Germany.

Previously the Director General of Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus Grand Paris, France Professor Eggermont has also served as President of ECCO (European CanCer Organization), President of the EORTC (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer), was a member of the Board of Directors of ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology), on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Cancer.

Professor Eggermont has published more than 1000 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and his expertise has been acknowledged by many professional awards throughout his career. He was elevated to the status of Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development on 1 January 2015.

Professor Kevin Harrington is a Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Head of Division of Radiotherapy and Imaging at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) / Royal Marsden Hospital (RMH). He is also Director of the ICR/RMH CRUK RadNet Centre of Excellence.

Professor Harrington's research interests include immunotherapy, targeted radiation sensitisers, and oncolytic virotherapy and related directly injected agents. In oncolytic virotherapy, he has led in developing DNA (HSV [talimogene laherparepvec, RP1, RP2 and RP3 viruses] and vaccinia virus) and RNA viruses (Reovirus type 3 Dearing, coxsackievirus A21, Maraba and Newcastle Disease virus) in the lab and the clinic. He received the 2019 British Association of Head and Neck Oncology President’s Achievement Award and was the 2021 Semon Lecturer (Royal Society of Medicine), the 2023 Elia Lecturer (Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and University of Toronto) and the 2024 Tata Orator (Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata).

Professor Harrington has published more than 600 peer-reviewed publications and over 50 book chapters. He was listed as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Professor Aurelien Marabelle is a senior oncologist and investigator within the Drug Development Department (DITEP) of Gustave Roussy Cancer Center, Paris. He is also a Professor of Clinical Immunology at the University of Paris Sarclay, France. His clinical practice is devoted to early phase clinical trials of cancer immunotherapies for all types of cancer.

Professor Marabelle is also the Director of the Clinical Investigation Center BIOTHERIS, dedicated to intratumoral immunotherapies. Professor Marabelle was initially trained as a scientist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and King’s College London and as a clinician at the Léon Bérard Cancer Center in Lyon, France. He completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Professor Ronald Levy at Stanford University, California, where he returned in 2021 as a visiting professor.

Professor Marabelle is an active member of ESMO, ASCO, AACR, SITC, EATI; he was the co-founder and is the current vice-president of the French Society for Cancer Immunotherapies (FITC). Professor Marabelle has published more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and has an H-index of 62.

Professor Ignacio Melero brings more than 36 years of experience in the fields of immunology and immunotherapy and has been the Co-director of the Immunology and Immunotherapy Service at the University of Navarra since 2015. His research focuses on cancer immunology and immunotherapy using a translational approach from experimental models to clinical trials. He has conducted more than 40 clinical trials as principal investigator.

Professor Melero is senior editor of the journal Clinical Cancer Research, scientific editor of Cancer Discovery, associate editor of the journal Frontiers in Immunology, and the section editor of the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer (JITC). Additionally, he is a member of the Editorial Board of several scientific journals, including Immunotherapy, Autoimmunity, Oncoimmunology, Journal of Translational Medicine, World Journal of Immunology, Cancer Immunology Research and Cancer Research. He is also a member of the external advisory boards of the Curie Institute (Paris), Gustave Roussy Institute, Biomedical Research Institute of Granada and Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI).

Dr. Jason Luke is one of the foremost clinical-translational investigators in immune-oncology and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, Director of the Immunotherapy and Drug Development Center and Associate Director for Clinical Research at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.

Dr. Luke has been a lead investigator on clinical trials of immunotherapy agents, including but not limited to novel immune-checkpoints, bispecific antibodies, innate immune-modifiers and oncolytic viruses, immune-metabolism, and cellular therapies in solid tumors. Dr. Luke conceived of and was the principal investigator for the KEYNOTE-716 trial that changed the landscape of stage II melanoma oncology and underpinned the FDA and EMA approval of pembrolizumab in this setting. He is an insightful and well respected voice across the spectrum of academia, industry and investment communities.

Dr. Alan Barge trained in medicine at Oxford and London and specialised in the treatment of leukaemia and bone-marrow transplantation. He joined the American biotechnology company Amgen in 1990 as European Medical Director and was responsible for the worldwide development of Neupogen® (filgrastim) in patients with cancer, leukaemia, HIV and infectious disease.

In 1999 Dr. Barge joined AstraZeneca, managing early phase oncology drug development taking many new drugs into first-in-human trials, and lead the development of Gefitinib (Iressa®) and Olaparib (Lynparza®). In 2003 he was appointed VP of Clinical and Head of Oncology and Infection, responsible for building and managing a large development group, and executing AstraZeneca’s oncology portfolio globally.

Dr. Barge left AstraZeneca in 2011 and co-founded ASLAN Pharmaceuticals, a Singapore-based biopharmaceutical company focusing on Asia-prevalent cancers. In 2016, he helped found Carrick Therapeutics in the UK, which also focuses on early-stage oncology assets.

Edmund Bartlett, MD is an assistant attending surgeon in the Gastric and Mixed Tumor Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where he focuses on the treatment of patients with cutaneous malignancy and sarcoma. Dr. Bartlett is a clinical and translational surgeon-scientist with a particular interest in improving the sensitivity of immunotherapeutics for patients with sarcoma. He currently serves as the co-principal investigator (PI) on a trial combining PD-1 and adenosine receptor inhibition for patients with dedifferentiated liposarcoma, the PI on an ongoing trial combining pembrolizumab and isolated limb infusion of melphalan and dactinomycin for patients with extremity sarcoma (NCT04332874), and as the PI on a trial exploring the early efficacy of intratumorally-injected tigilanol tiglate in patients with soft tissue sarcoma (NCT05755113).

 Professor David Thomas is a leading scientist and clinician with over 40 years’ experience in oral and maxillofacial surgery, with research spanning wound healing, nanomedicines, tissue engineering and antimicrobial therapies. He is Professor and Honorary Consultant at Cardiff University and leads the Advanced Therapies Group. His work has advanced understanding of microbiome, biofilms and chronic wound biology, supported by over £15 million in funding. He co-founded the Cardiff Institute of Tissue Engineering and Repair and has advanced polymer therapies to Phase II trials, including OligoG, which received US FDA Orphan Drug Status. He also collaborates with QBiotics on rainforest-derived antimicrobials targeting multidrug-resistant infections. Professor Thomas has held senior leadership roles including President of the Academic Association of British Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and Innovation Lead at Cardiff University. He has an h-index of 53 with 8,500+ citations and holds honours including the King James IV Professorship and Fellowship of the Learned Society of Wales. 

Professor Andrew Sewell is a leading scientist and distinguished research professor at Cardiff University, specialising in T-cell biology and cancer immunotherapy. With over 30 years’ experience, spanning viral immunology, autoimmunity and translational oncology, he is internationally recognised for expertise in T-cell receptor biology and therapeutic application. His work includes landmark discoveries in immune escape by HIV and SARS-CoV2, T-cell cross-reactivity and epitope recognition, including demonstrating that a single T-cell receptor can recognise over one million peptides. He pioneered combinatorial peptide library approaches for epitope mapping and was a major contributor to the original VDJdb publication and underlying T-cell receptor dataset. His group also demonstrated that CRISPR-mediated TCR replacement can generate highly sensitive anticancer T-cells, advancing next-generation immunotherapy. Professor Sewell’s research has strong translational impact, contributing to technologies and spinouts, including Avidex, Adaptimmune and Immunocore, which have helped pioneer clinically approved T-cell receptor-based cancer therapies. He holds a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award and received the 2023 Genentech Distinguished Research Award for Outstanding Research in Cell and Gene Therapy.

Professor Aurelien Marabelle is a senior oncologist and investigator within the Drug Development Department (DITEP) of Gustave Roussy Cancer Center, Paris. He is also a Professor of Clinical Immunology at the University of Paris Sarclay, France. His clinical practice is devoted to early phase clinical trials of cancer immunotherapies for all types of cancer.

Professor Marabelle is also the Director of the Clinical Investigation Center BIOTHERIS, dedicated to intratumoral immunotherapies. Professor Marabelle was initially trained as a scientist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and King’s College London and as a clinician at the Léon Bérard Cancer Center in Lyon, France. He completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Professor Ronald Levy at Stanford University, California, where he returned in 2021 as a visiting professor.

Professor Marabelle is an active member of ESMO, ASCO, AACR, SITC, EATI; he was the co-founder and is the current vice-president of the French Society for Cancer Immunotherapies (FITC). Professor Marabelle has published more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and has an H-index of 62.

Professor Kelly Blacklock is a leading specialist in small animal soft tissue surgery at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Her research spans translational oncology, mucosal melanoma, surgical infection control and surgical education. She established the dog as a natural immunocompetent model of human oronasal mucosal melanoma, generating multi-omics datasets that demonstrate shared tumour biology and provide a translational platform for drug discovery. This work, supported by the Wellcome Trust and QBiotics Group, underpins ongoing canine clinical trials and organoid-based melanoma research. Her infection control research has influenced global veterinary practice and contributed to Infection Control in Small Animal Practice (CABI, 2023). She holds a PhD from the University of Liverpool and collaborates internationally across veterinary, surgical and bioinformatics networks. In 2024 she was awarded a Personal Chair for her clinical and research leadership.

Professor Gian Cesare Tron is a leading scientist and Full Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy, with a career at the forefront of synthetic medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. His research focuses on novel multicomponent reactions, isocyanide chemistry and the development of new anticancer agents. He has completed research placements at leading global institutions including the University of Bristol (UK), Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (France) and The Scripps Research Institute (USA), shaping an internationally recognised research programme. Professor Tron has authored 125 peer-reviewed publications, holds six patents, and has an h-index of 42 (May 2026), with recognition among the World’s Top 2% Scientists (from 2020 to present). His work has strong translational impact through collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies including QBiotics Group and others. He has received competitive funding from MIUR and AIRC and was awarded the Farmindustria Prize (2007).

Professor Thomas Wishart is a leading scientist in molecular anatomy. Formerly Co-Head of Translational Biomarker Discovery at the Centre for Dementia Prevention and Deputy Director of the Roslin Institute (University of Edinburgh), he currently leads neuroscience activity at the School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University. He also leads the ALLMoND programme (Academic Led Livestock Models of Neurological Disorders) at the Roslin Institute. His research focuses on neurodegenerative disease mechanisms, including synaptic vulnerability, multi-omics biomarkers and clinically relevant animal models. He is well known for his research advancing understanding of conditions such as motor neurone disease – both adult onset (ALS) and childhood onset (ie SMA with patent applications for therapeutics). He is also an expert in dementia, again including both adult onset forms such as Alzheimer’s disease, and childhood dementias (such as Batten disease) with expertise in therapeutic assessments including cross-species efficacy of enzyme replacement therapy (JCI, 2022) and viral interventions (Molecular Therapies, 2025) for CLN1 disease in mouse and sheep models. He has 80+ peer-reviewed publications and an h-index of 38. Professor Wishart has secured millions of pounds in competitive funding, including NIH R01 support and industry partnerships. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (2021) and the Anatomical Society (2018).

Professor Timothy Walsh OBE is Professor of Medical Microbiology and Antimicrobial Resistance and Director of Biology at the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research, University of Oxford. He is a globally recognised leading scientist with over 30 years’ experience in antimicrobial resistance (AMR). He discovered and named two major resistance genes: NDM, now a dominant global carbapenemase, and MCR-1, a plasmid-mediated colistin resistance gene co-discovered in 2015. He also co-discovered TetX, a key tigecycline resistance mechanism. Through unique models with collaborators, he has shown that microplastics and rising temperatures accelerate AMR spread, reshaping global intervention approaches. He currently leads two major AMR burden studies in LMICs - BARNARDS (neonates) and BALANCE (adults). He contributed to China’s 2017 ban on colistin in agriculture and advises the WHO, national health ministries, the Chinese CDC and ENABLE 2. Professor Walsh was appointed OBE in 2020 for services to microbiology and international development, was awarded his DSc in 2022, and is a member of Academia Europaea (2023). 

Professor Giovanni Appendino is a leading scientist and Emeritus Professor of organic chemistry at the Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy, where he served as Full Professor until 2022. He is a highly distinguished natural products chemist with a four-decade career spanning organic chemistry, pharmacology and chemical biology. His work focuses on natural product discovery and synthesis, including isolation of more than 200 novel compounds and development of new synthetic methodologies. Key areas include cannabinoids, taxoids and isoprenoids, with translational work in collaboration with the University of Córdoba producing clinical candidates VCE-004.8 and VCE-003.2 with Orphan Drug Status in the EU and USA. He has authored 429 publications with 16,505+ citations, an h-index of 65 and 14 patents, placing him among the world’s top 2% of scientists. He has received major international honours including the Egon Stahl Gold Award (2023) and held senior editorial roles, including editor-in-chief of Fitoterapia (2009–22).