• Dr Simon Boulton – Senior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute and VP of Scientific Strategy at Artios
• Dr KJ Patel – tenured Principal Investigator at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge
• Dr Jos Jonkers – Professor of Molecular Experimental Oncogenetics and Cancer Therapeutics, and Head of Molecular Pathology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute
• Dr Serena Nik-Zainal – Cancer Research UK Advanced Clinician Scientist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
• Dr Stephen V. Frye – Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

LONDON, 8 June, 2017: Arix Bioscience plc (LSE: ARIX) (“Arix Bioscience” or the “Company”), a global healthcare and life science company supporting medical innovation, is pleased to note the announcement by Artios Pharma Ltd, an Arix Bioscience Group Business, that it has formed a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) comprising world-leading experts from across Europe and the United States in the fields of DNA damage response (DDR), DNA genetics and drug discovery.

The SAB will provide invaluable scientific expertise and guidance to the Artios management team and Board as the company progresses its discovery programmes towards the clinic and continues assessing new DDR product development opportunities.

The SAB members include:

Dr Simon Boulton

Simon is Senior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute and VP of Scientific Strategy at Artios. He is also an honorary Professor at University College London and Kings College London, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) and member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). Over the last 15 years Simon’s laboratory has discovered novel DNA repair genes and provided molecular insights into their impact on human diseases. As a result of his ground-breaking work, Simon has received a number of prestigious accolades, most notably the EMBO Gold Medal and the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. He has also given numerous prize lectures, including the Royal Society Francis Crick Prize lecture and the Mendel Lecture. Simon previously established the DNA Damage Response Laboratory at Cancer Research UK, London Research Institute, Clare Hall Laboratory having completed post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Simon gained his PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Dr KJ Patel

KJ is a scientist and tenured Principal Investigator at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at the University of Cambridge. Over the past 18 years, his laboratory has made crucial discoveries in the field of DNA crosslink repair and in identifying that alcohol derived and endogenous aldehydes are a potent source of endogenous DNA damage. KJ is also responsible for discovering a key role for the BRCA2 in DNA repair, stimulating his interest in DNA crosslink repair. KJ is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), a Fellow to the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) and has a fellowship to the Royal Society (FRS). KJ trained in medicine at the University of London where he specialised in gastroenterology, and he completed his PhD in immunology at the LMB.

Dr Jos Jonkers

Jos is Professor of Molecular Experimental Oncogenetics and Cancer Therapeutics, and the Head of Molecular Pathology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI). His laboratory specialises in the genetic dissection of human BRCA-associated hereditary breast cancer and E-cadherin mutated invasive lobular breast cancer through the use of genetically engineered mouse models and patient-derived xenograft models. In 2002 he visited the laboratory of Allan Bradley at the Sanger Institute to develop platforms for mouse array-CGH. He then became an Assistant Professor at the NKI in 2003 and a permanent staff member in 2008. Jos is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and gained his PhD and post-doctoral research in the group of Anton Berns at the NKI.

Dr Serena Nik-Zainal

Serena is a Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Advanced Clinician Scientist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Her laboratory explores patterns of mutations or mutational signatures that arise in human cells to understand how DNA damage and DNA repair processes contribute towards aging and cancer. Serena is a Career Development Fellow (CDF) Group Leader in the Cancer Genome Project and Honorary Consultant in Clinical Genetics at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. In 2013, Serena was awarded a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship to pursue biological understanding of the signatures identified during her research training. She joined the Sanger Institute Faculty team in 2014 and leads the Signatures of Mutagenesis in Somatic Cells group. She qualified in medicine from the University of Cambridge in 2000 and trained as a physician specialising in Clinical Genetics. Serena undertook her PhD at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in 2009 with Mike Stratton, exploring breast cancer using next-generation sequencing technology.

Dr Stephen V. Frye

Stephen is currently the Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the highest ranked school of pharmacy in the USA. As Director of the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at UNC, Stephen plays a key role in translational research through collaborative drug discovery projects with other UNC facilities. Stephen has a broad background in drug discovery and development and most notably he was responsible for co-inventing the marketed product Avodart and created the department that discovered the FDA approved kinase inhibitor oncology therapies Lapatinib (Tyverb®) and Pazopanib (Votrient®), while at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Previously, Stephen was VP of Discovery Medicinal Chemistry at GSK. Stephen is currently Chair of Cancer Research UK’s Drug Discovery Committee, Member of A*STAR Project Review Committee of the Experimental Therapeutics Center in Singapore, Co-Founder and Vice President of the Academic Drug Discovery Consortiun and Member of the SAB for the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre/ Experimental Therapeutics Programme. Stephen received his PhD in organic chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill in the USA.