Joint Oncology/IRDB Imperial Seminar Series, Thursday 12.05.22 @ 13.30, hosted by Dr Olivier Pardo.
We are delighted to have Professor Julian Downward. Julian Downward is Associate Research Director at the Francis Crick Institute, where he leads the Oncogene Biology Group, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Julian obtained his bachelor’s degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University and then completed his PhD in biochemistry in the laboratory of Michael Waterfield at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund laboratories in London. Julian’s work in the 1980s uncovered the importance of EGFR in the development of cancer, identifying its relationship to the retroviral erbB oncogene. Julian began working on the role of Ras proteins in human cancer in Robert Weinberg’s laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, prior to starting his own lab at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, which is now part of the Francis Crick Institute. His lab has provided critical insights into the molecular mechanisms of signaling networks controlled by Ras proteins and their importance in human tumours. Most recently he has focused on the ways in which Ras signaling in cancer cells controls the tumour microenvironment, including suppression of attack by the immune system.