Derek Richard
Professor Derek Richard did his under graduate degree and PhD at the University of Dundee, Scotland. He then spent 4 years as a Fellow at St Andrews University before moving to the QIMR in Brisbane. In 2011 Derek moved his research team to QUT where he is currently Scientific Director of the Cancer and Ageing Research Program and Director of the Queensland Centre For Drug Target Screening. Since moving to QUT in 2011 Derek has raised over $30m in research funding and has launched two new biotechnology companies.
Professor Derek Richard’s research seeks to understand how DNA repair systems function to protect our genetic code from disease causing mutations and how these protective processes go wrong with age, driving disease initiation. Using this information his research team have developed a first in class inhibitor of the DNA repair protein hSSB1 which will enter Phase I trials in 2019.