Dr Simon Cook

Interim Director and Head of Signalling Programme at The Babraham Institute

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Interim Director and Head of Signalling Programme, The Babraham Institute

Simon became interested in Signal Transduction after inspiring lectures from Dr John Lagnado during his Biochemistry degree at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He did his PhD in Michael Wakelam’s laboratory at the University of Glasgow (1987-91), studying signalling by Phospholipase-C and -D. A chance meeting over a beer at a conference led to his move to Post-Doc with Frank McCormick at ONYX Pharmaceuticals in the San Francisco Bay Area where he studied the then emerging RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK1/2 pathway (1991-94). After his Post-Doc Simon stayed on at ONYX as a Staff Scientist and member of the RAS Group Steering Committee (1994-1997). He also served as Project Manager for the Inflammation Project which he guided to corporate partnership with ParkeDavis/Warner-Lambert securing $10M funding for 3yrs to progress drug-discovery projects.

Simon joined the Babraham Institute as a tenure-track group leader in 1997 and held a CRUK Senior Cancer Research Fellowship from 2000-2006 and received merit promotions to Band 3 in 2006 and Band 2 (Professorial) in 2016. From 2013-2021 he coordinated Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation activities within the Institute. Since September 2020, Simon has led the Institute’s Signalling research programme and in 2021 he was appointed Interim Director.

Simon has served on BBSRC Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Worldwide Cancer Research (AICR) grants committees and the scientific advisory boards of the Beatson Institute Drug Discovery Unit, the CRUK Therapeutic Discovery Labs and the Northern Institute for Cancer Research Drug Discovery Unit. He currently serves on the Scientific Sub-Committee of PhoreMost, a drug discovery SME based on the Babraham Research Campus.

Throughout his career Simon has collaborated extensively with the Biotech and Pharma sector. At Babraham he has collaborated with AstraZeneca for more than 15 years focusing on mechanisms of innate and acquired resistance to MEKi, FGFRi, mTORi. This work identified PKB signalling as an innate driver of MEKi resistance, part of the work that prompted a Selumetinib + MK2206 clinical trial (with Merck). Work on acquired resistance to MEKi through BRAF amplification also contributed to a large body of work that lead to MEKi+BRAFi approval in melanoma and recently CRC. More recently his lab identified the MCL1 inhibitor AZD5991 as a rational combination with BRAFi and/or MEKi in melanoma. He has also collaborated with Astex Pharmaceuticals, MISSION Therapeutics and PhoreMost (through a collaborative Innovate UK award) to translate his knowledge of signalling pathways.

His hobbies include bird-watching, walking, reading, music and cinema.

Simon Cook » Babraham Institute