Dr. Vignir Helgason University of Glasgow, UK

Dr. Vignir Helgason graduated with a B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Iceland in 2000 and worked at deCODE genetics (Reykjavik, Iceland) for three years before embarking on an academic career. He trained for a PhD degree in Prof. Kevin Ryan’s “Tumour Cell Death Laboratory” at the Cancer Research... read moreUK Beatson Institute and graduated with a PhD from University of Glasgow in October 2007. He then held two post-doctoral positions in Prof. Tessa Holyoake’s lab at the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre, which has been described as “a flagship model of integrated basic, translational and clinical research.” In 2013 Dr. Helgason was awarded a Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund Research Fellowship that supports “truly outstanding biomedical scientists prior to establishing an independent research group in an international centre of excellence”. This allowed him to setup his own research group at the recently opened world-class Wolfson Wohl Cancer Research Centre, and facilitated an application to the University of Glasgow Leadership Fellowship scheme and John Goldman Fellowship for Future Science, both of which were successful. Dr. Helgason’s team focuses on the role of autophagy and energy metabolism in disease persistence and drug resistance in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia and Acute Myeloid Leukaemia with the overall aim of targeting appropriate therapy to the stem cell compartment to remove the population in which drug resistance occurs.