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Sir David Lane, Ph.D.

Scientific Director, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

Sir David Lane is Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and a member of the board of directors. He started his career at University College London studying microbiology. He met the immunologist Avrion Mitchison and became his Ph.D. student in 1973. Professor Lane learned immunology by studying the genetics of autoimmunity. This training allowed him to discover the p53 protein complexed to SV40 T antigen during his first postdoctoral work at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) labs in London in 1978. He moved to Cold Spring Harbor laboratories in New York from 1978 to '79 and taught himself how to make and characterize monoclonal antibodies. He then took up a teaching and research post at Imperial College and continued to work on p53 and T antigen. In 1985 he moved to the new ICRF labs at Clare Hall, where he wrote the Cold Spring Harbor manual on antibodies and participated in the amazing p53 breakthrough, which established that p53 mutation is very common in human cancers. He then moved to Dundee University for the next 14 years, during which time he established Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, now a listed company with a compound in late stage-3 trial for AML.

In 2004 Professor Lane helped establish biomedical research at the Biopolis in Singapore, working for A*Star. It was here that he first led a large institute and began his association with the Ludwig Institute, joining its Scientific Advisory Committee. He also established the Experimental Therapeutics Center in Singapore, which now has a novel vaccine in clinical trials and several very exciting small-molecule programs in early development. In addition, he became Chairman of Chugai Pharmabody, a 65-person team of advanced antibody engineers working in Singapore as a discovery subsidiary for Chugai Limited.

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