Biopharmaceuticals: Designing the next life-saving therapeutics

Interested in drug discovery? The OxPharmSoc brings to you Dr Howard Mellor, Director of Toxicology at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Besides talking about his exciting career since he was a DPhil student in Biochemistry, Howard will tell us what his job comprises and what his team works on at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Howard is Director of Toxicology at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where he is the pre-clinical safety lead and member of the research leadership team for the European research site in Oxford, UK. After undergraduate studies in Bristol, he received his doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford in 2003, where his work focused on the design and biological evaluation of novel inhibitors of protein and lipid glycosylation. Howard was a postdoctoral fellow for six years (2003-2009) at the John Radcliffe Hospital and the Molecular Oncology Laboratories, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, where he researched mechanisms of cancer cell death and chemoresistance. In 2009, Howard joined AstraZeneca as a Discovery Toxicologist, supporting the Oncology portfolio, before taking up his current position at Vertex in 2013. Howard has authored over thirty peer-reviewed articles in toxicology, pharmacology and molecular oncology. He is a European registered toxicologist, Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology and past-president of the Drug Discovery Toxicology Specialty Section of the Society of Toxicology.

This event is open to life science undergraduate and graduate students and to early career researchers. To keep updated about career and scientific events in STEM, join our society by visiting www.oupharmsoc.co.uk.