Dr. Olivier Pardo Imperial College London, UK

Olivier E. Pardo graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy Paris-V, France where he was awarded a Doctorate in Industrial Pharmacy (1997) and then moved to the UK where he completed his PhD at Imperial College-London (2002). He subsequently joined the laboratory of Prof. Julian Downward at the CRUK-London Research Institute... read moreas a post-doctoral fellow where he worked on the regulation of apoptosis and cell migration. In 2006, he became team leader at Imperial College-London, Department of Surgery and Cancer where he created the Cellular Regulatory Networks lab. His team focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying chemo-resistance and metastasis in lung and other cancers. In the last 5 years, his lab highlighted the role of S6 kinases, Src family members and FGF signalling in these processes. He also worked on resistance to targeted therapies in particular downstream of EGFR resistance mutations. This involved multidisciplinary collaborations with other labs in the UK, France, the US, Canada and China bringing in biochemistry, molecular biology, physics and bio-informatics expertise. The data generated by his lab led to the initiation of several clinical trials in lung and breast cancer patients. Dr Pardo is also the Director of the MRes Cancer Biology at Imperial College, training the next generation of cancer research professionals.