Dr. Ashok Venkitaraman

Professor, The Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer Research, University of Cambridge

Dr. Venkitaraman is the Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer Research at the University of Cambridge, and the Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cancer Cell Unit at the Hutchison/MRC Research Centre. He is a Collaborative Science Chair at inStem and NCBS, Bangalore, and coordinates the Center for Chemical Biology and Therapeutics there. Ashok is internationally recognized for his research on the molecular mechanisms that preserve chromosome structure and number during cell division, and how defects in these mechanisms cause human cancer. His discoveries shed light on how chromosomal instability contributes to human cancer, provide scientific foundations underpinning new approaches to therapy, and reveal new insights into the fundamental mechanisms that repair, duplicate and segregate DNA when cells division occurs. Translation of these discoveries to clinical application is a major focus of Dr. Venkitaraman’s ongoing work. He was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, London, in 2001, and as a member of the EMBO European academy, Heidelberg, in 2004.