SCILLS - The Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling

Ivan Dikic
SAG Chairman

Ivan Dikic was born and brought up in Croatia, where he was trained as a medical doctor, he obtained his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Zagreb while working under the supervision of Joseph Schlessinger at New York University Medical Center, USA.  He became a Group Leader at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Uppsala, Sweden moving to Frankfurt in 2002. He is currently a Professor of Biochemistry at the Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany and at the start of 2009 became the Founder Director of the CEF (Center of Excellence Frankfurt) Institute.

He also holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Split, Croatia, where he is an Adjunct Investigator of the Tumour Biology Program of medILS.

Ivan is widely recognized as one of the leading scientists working on the ubiquitin system today.  His research has pioneered the concept that ubiquitin acts a classical signaling messenger, being recognized by specific ubiquitin-binding domains (UBD) that are present in cellular proteins, and which relay ubiquitin signals into appropriate cellular responses. His work has explained how specific ubiquitin-binding domains regulate a variety of processes, including immunological responses, DNA repair, proteasomal degradation and receptor-mediated endocytosis. One of his current interests is to understand the role of selective autophagy receptors that bind to ubiquitin- like modifiers, such as LC3/Atg8, and act as molecular regulators of autophagy.

Ivan’s recent awards include the Wissenschaftspreis 2006 from the Glaxo-Smith-Kline-Foundation, the Binder Innovation Prize of the German Society for Cell Biology (2006) and the American Association for Cancer Research Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research in 2006.

Karen Vousden FRS FRSE

Karen Vousden is the Director of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, Scotland and prior to this was Chief of the Cell Growth Regulation Laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, Maryland, USA. Her research focuses on how the tumour suppressor protein p53 prevents malignant progression and how the p53 response is regulated. A particular interest is the control of p53 protein stability and function by ubiquitin and ubiquitin-related proteins. Karen was the first to describe MDM2 as an E3 ubiquitin ligase that targets p53 for ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis. She has also helped to define a role for ubiquitin and the ubiquitin-related modifier SUMO in regulating the subcellular localization of p53. She is interested in developing small molecules inhibitors of MDM2 that might provide a basis for the development of novel therapeutic strategies, based on the restoration of p53 functions to tumor cells.  Karen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2003 and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2004.

Mike Tyers FRSE FRSC

Mike Tyers holds the CH Waddington Chair of Systems Biology at the University of Edinburgh and is also the Director of the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA). Previously based at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Mike has helped to pioneer the application of functional genomic and proteomic technologies to important biological questions. One of Mike’s current interests is in investigating the SCF ubiquitin ligase machinery and F-box protein pathways in yeast and mammalian systems. Mike is a Howard Hughes International Research Scholar, was elected a  Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2002 and received their McLaughlin Medal in 2006. His other major awards include the National Cancer Institute of Canada's William E. Rawls Prize, the Premier's Research Excellence Award, the Merck-Frosst Award, the Michael Smith Award and the Lloyd S.D. Fogler Q.C. Award for Research Excellence. In 2009 Mike was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Andy Porter FRSE

Andy Porter is the Professor of Biotechnology and Deputy Director of the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.  He was also the academic founder and Chief Scientific Officer of  Haptogen Ltd, which was acquired in October 2007 by the pharmaceutical company Wyeth.  Haptogen has developed human therapeutic antibodies capable of treating liver disease and combating antibiotic resistant bacteria, and introduced the single chain antibodies produced by sharks as a new drug discovery platform. Andy was also one of the founding academics and Research Director of Remedios Ltd, Aberdeen.  Remedios is a biosensor company and was named Scottish biotechnology company of the year in 2000.

Andy serves on the Steering Committees of the Biotechnology Industry Association, Scotland and the Life Science Alliance, Scotland.  He is also a member of the Protein Therapeutics Scientific Advisory Board for Wyeth Inc., as well as the Scottish Science Advisory Council that advises the Scottish Government on all aspects of science policy. Together with the founding scientists of Haptogen, he established a small venture fund, Grampian Bio-partners, that invests in early stage companies focused on immuno-technology and biologics platforms.

Over the past four years Andy has been named the Ernst and Young Plc, Scottish and UK Science and Technology Entrepreneur of the Year and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2006. His role on the Scientific Advisory Group of SCILLS is to provide advise on the commercial potential of its research.