An internationally renowned cancer researcher at the University of Dundee,Professor Roland Wolf will today (Friday September 14) address scientists from across Europe in Istanbul. Professor Wolf will deliver the Gerhard Zbinden Memorial Lecture, which recognises scientific excellence in the area of drug and chemical safety. In this its sixth year the lecture is part of an annual meeting of Eurotox, a European body set up to study the toxicity of drugs.
In inviting Professor Wolf to give the lecture Dr Hieanen, the secretary general of Eurotox said "The Gerhard Zbinden Memorial Lecture is held at the annual Eurotox congress by scientists who have made outstanding research contributions to the science of drug or chemical toxicology"
Professor Wolf is recognised as a world-leading researcher into cancer and is Director of the University's Biomedical Research Centre. He is an Honorary Director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Molecular Pharmacology Unit. His department employs around 130 researchers in Dundee where the main focus of their research is to understand the pathways that determine the sensitivity of cells to drugs, environmental agents and chemical toxins.
By adopting this approach to their research Professor Wolf and his team aim to find out what causes one person to catch cancer while the next person doesn't. He believes that many of the adverse side effects of drugs, estimated to account for one in 15 hospital admissions, are predictable because it is now possible to determine each person's unique genetic make-up. He has developed a DNA-based test to establish whether the single gene that controls our reaction to drugs is working effectively. The test enables companies to predict side-effects in new drugs and a version of this should soon be available to doctors.
In the past Professor Wolf has been called upon to advise such bodies as the Medical Research Council, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Farming and the Department of Health../ends
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