Scientific founders
MISSION Therapeutics was founded by a highly successful team of scientists with extensive experience and a proven track-record in translating new scientific concepts from initial biochemical screens all the way to drugs in clinical trials
Steve Jackson, Chief Scientific Officer: After graduating in Biochemistry from the University of Leeds, UK. Steve did his PhD at Imperial College London and Edinburgh University. He then carried out post-doctoral training in the lab of Robert Tjian in Berkeley, USA and, in 1991 became a group leader at what is now the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, where he is currently a Senior Group Leader and Head of Cancer Research UK Laboratories. Since 1995, Steve has held the University of Cambridge’s Frederick James Quick Chair of Biology. Steve’s academic group in the Gurdon Institute comprises around 20 scientists, most of whom are post-doctoral fellows. Steve is best known for his work on cellular responses to DNA damage. His group identified many key DNA-damage-response proteins and established how they interact with damaged DNA and with one another in regulated ways. Steve’s research also helped us understand how such proteins impinge on telomere maintenance and chromatin structure, and revealed that impairments in these responses cause genome instability, immune deficiency and cell-cycle progression defects. Steve has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications and his work has been cited over 27,000 times. In recognition of these achievements, Steve has received various prizes, including most recently the Biochemical Society GlaxoSmithKline Award (2008), the BBSRC Innovator of the Year Award (2009) and the Royal Society Buchanan Medal (2011). He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (1997), the Academy of Medical Sciences (2001) and the Fellowship of the Royal Society (2008). In 1997, Steve founded KuDOS Pharmaceuticals Ltd to transfer knowledge of DNA repair to medical applications. Specifically, he established the company to develop drugs to interfere with DNA repair and associated events in such ways that they can be used to kill cancer cells but not normal cells. Based on its successes, particularly in developing the drug olaparib that kills cancer cells by “synthetic-lethality”, KuDOS was acquired in 2006 by Astra Zeneca; and KuDOS drugs are now being evaluated a substantial number of clinical trials. Realizing that many opportunities arising from his research were not being adequately exploited by the pharmaceutical industry, Steve conceived MISSION Therapeutics (so named because Steve believes that his life’s mission is to do all that he can to use his scientific insight to alleviate human disease and suffering). Steve now acts as part-time CSO for MISSION while retaining his distinct but complementary academic roles.
Niall Martin – Chief Operating Officer: Niall Martin graduated with a PhD from Aberdeen University from where he joined Zeneca Pharmaceuticals in Macclesfield as a post doctorate scientist in the non-lipid cardiovascular disease Bioscience group. In 1993 Niall moved to France to become a Team Leader within the Thrombosis group at Laboratoire Fournier, a Dijon based pharmaceutical company. On his return to the UK in 1999 Niall became Director of Drug Discovery at KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, UK where he established the drug-screening capabilities in KuDOS that underpinned all KuDOS drug discovery programmes. Most notably, Niall set up and headed the KuDOS programme targeting PARP (a NUP enzyme) that yielded the pioneering new drug, olaparib (and various follow-on compounds), that is now in Phase I and II trials (currently 26 trials in total) and is soon to enter Phase III. Olaparib is being widely discussed as one of the most significant breakthroughs in anti-cancer drug development of the past two to three decades, and the success of this drug was a major driving force for the acquisition of KuDOS by AstraZeneca. Niall then became head of KuDOS from 2008, up until the closure by AstraZeneca of the KuDOS site in October 2010. Niall is a founding member of MISSION and joins the company as Chief Operating Officer.
Xavier Jacq: After graduating in Biochemistry from the University of Montpellier (USTL ,France), Xavier did his DEA and PhD at Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France in the laboratory of Pierre Chambon and Laszlo Tora. He then carried out post-doctoral training at Columbia University, NY, USA in the labs of Carol Prives and James L. Manley studying the regulation of the p53 tumour suppressor gene. In 2000, Xavier, gained his first industrial experience as a post-doctoral employee at Sanofi-Synthelabo in Reuil-Malmaison, France, investigating novel targets for oncology and metabolism. In 2002, Xavier was recruited by Hybrigenics SA, Paris as a Project Leader and carried out target validation in the field of ubiquitination. He was involved in setting-up the drug discovery platform at Hybrigenics. In 2006, Xavier moved to the UK and briefly joined Lectus Therapeutics, where he was involved in establishing novel assays for ion channel drug discovery. In 2008, Xavier joined KuDOS in Cambridge, UK as a team leader and project leader in the field of DNA-damage response and was involved in carrying successful pre-clinical projects in collaboration with colleagues at Astra-Zeneca world-wide. Following the closure of KuDOS in 2010, Xavier decided together with Steve Jackson, Niall Martin and Keith Menear to set-up MISSION Therapeutics. Prior to the establishment of the MISSION Therapeutics facilities, Xavier was able to initiate target validation and assay development in Steve Jackson’s academic lab at the Gurdon Institute together with a team of 3 former research scientist from KuDOS. Xavier has extensive experience in oncology drug discovery, especially in the Ubiquitin field, he is an inventor on multiple patents relating to target validation, assays and inhibitors, and is an author of multiple publications. Xavier is a founding member of MISSION Therapeutics and joins the company as Head of Biology.
Keith Menear: From successfully managing chemistry teams in Ciba-GEIGY and Novartis, Keith became Head of Chemistry at KuDOS in 2001 up to the closure of the Horsham site in 2008 by AstraZeneca. He subsequently established Menear Chemistry Consultancy. Keith headed the chemistry teams at KuDOS that produced olaparib (see above), and the mTOR inhibitor (AZD8055) now in Phase I evaluation and several other drugs in late pre-clinical development at AZ. Keith has experience in protease drug discovery from his time in Novartis, and from KuDOS has in-depth knowledge of drug discovery based on PARP1/2 and other NUPs