Liverpool Cancer Research UK Centre Annual Meeting
Next year's meeting is to be held on Monday, 14th May 2012.

Confirmed speakers are Richard Marais (ICR), Alberto Bardelli (Torino) and Grant Stewart (Birmingham). More details to follow.

The poster competition attracted 34 abstracts from PhD students and PostDocs from across the campus.

(From L-R) Steve Jackson, Gareth Thomas, Dario Alessi

Dario Alessi was born in France, attended high school in Brussels and obtained a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham, UK in 1988. He received a Ph.D. in 1991 for work on the synthesis and use of spin-labelled ATP analogues to study muscle contraction under the joint supervision of Ian Trayer (University of Birmingham) and David Trentham FRS (National Institute of Medical Research, Mill Hill, London). He then carried out postdoctoral research with Sir Philip Cohen FRS in the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at Dundee from 1991 to 1997, where he became fascinated by protein kinases and how they are regulated by insulin, growth factors and other extracellular signals that control almost all aspects of cell biology.

In 1998 Dario became a Programme Leader in the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, where he has worked ever since. A key focus of his current research is to understand the regulation and physiological roles of key protein kinases that implicated in human disease and to exploit findings emerging from these studies to develop novel treatments for disease.

Steve Jackson is the Frederick James Quick Professor of Biology in the Department of Biochemistry, School of the Biological Sciences at Cambridge University, UK, and a Senior Group Leader in the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology in Cambridge. He is Head of Cancer Research UK Laboratories in the Institute. Steve was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2008 and has been made BBSRC Innovator of the Year 2009.
Steve is originally from Nottingham in the English Midlands. He obtained his first degree from Leeds University and then did his PhD research with Jean Beggs on yeast RNA splicing, first at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London and then in the Department of Molecular Biology at Edinburgh University.
After doing post-doctoral research with Robert Tjian at UC Berkeley, CA, USA, where he developed an interest in the regulation of transcription, Steve returned to the UK in 1991 as a Junior Group Leader at the then Wellcome-CRC Institute. Here, he continued his research into transcription by eukaryotic RNA polymerases II and III and expanded this work to include the transcriptional apparatus in Archaea. Through characterising the functions of the DNA-dependent protein kinase, Steve was led into the field of DNA repair and DNA-damage signalling; and for the past eleven years this has been the major focus of his group.

In 1997, Steve founded a biotechnology venture, KuDOS Pharmaceuticals Ltd, to transfer research on DNA repair to medical applications. KuDOS was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2005. As of September 2010 all of KuDOS' programmes have transferred to the main AstraZeneca site in Macclesfield. His group is still in contact with many former KuDOS scientists and continue to closely followthe clinical progress of the drugs that KuDOS developed.

Steve has received several prizes including, Eppendorf European Young Investigator of the Year (1995), the Tenovus Medal (1997), the Biochemical Society Colworth Medal (1997), and the Anthony Dipple Carcinogenesis Young Investigator Award (2002). He is a member of several professional societies and organizations, including the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Fellowship of the Royal Society.

Steve is the recipient of the Biochemical Society 2008 GlaxoSmithKline Award. The award is made every two years and is intended to recognise distinguished research leading to new advances in medical sciences. Steve received his award at the Biochemical Society's Annual Symposium on "DNA damage: from causes to cures" held at Robinson College, Cambridge in December, 2008.

Gareth Thomas joined the University of Southampton in 2009 as Professor of Experimental Pathology. He trained in Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology at University College Hospital, London, gaining his FDSRCS in 1994 and MRCPath in 2004. He undertook his PhD as an MRC Clinical Fellow at University College London and the Richard Dimblebey Department of Cancer Research at St Thomas Hospital, studying integrins in keratinocytes (1996-1999). In 2004 he was awarded a 5-year Clinician Scientist Fellowship from the Heath Foundation to develop novel tumour therapies based on alphavbeta6 integrin expression in head and neck cancer. The Fellowship was held at the Institute of Cancer at Barts and the London, where he was appointed Senior Clinical Lecturer/Senior Clinical Fellow. During this period he also held the position of Honorary Consultant at University College Hospital London. He was appointed Professor of Oral Pathology and Consultant in Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology at Barts and the London in 2007.