Renowned scientist appointed to head top UK cancer labs

Dr John Diffley has been appointed as the new Director of Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute Clare Hall Laboratories.

The Clare Hall Laboratories were officially opened in 1986. Twelve research groups work at the laboratories which are home to over 100 scientific and administrative staff. Under the direction of current director Dr Tomas Lindahl, Clare Hall has become a leading UK centre for studies of DNA repair, recombination and replication, cell cycle control and transcription.

Elected to EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) in 1998, Dr Diffley was awarded the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research in 2003, and made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005. He serves on a number of editorial boards, including the Science Board of Reviewing Editors.

Dr Diffley obtained his PhD from NYU in 1984. He then moved to the world-famous Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for postdoctoral research with Dr Bruce Stillman, who is now the Institute’s President and Chief Executive.

He then joined Cancer Research UK as a junior group leader at Clare Hall in 1990. His research interests have focussed on DNA replication throughout his career, and he has made groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of how the origins of DNA replication are recognised and how the initiation and progression of replication is integrated with other events during the cell cycle.

Dr Diffley will formally take up the Directorship on January 1 2006. Dr Lindahl will then step down as Clare Hall director, while remaining Head of Clare Hall’s Mutagenesis Laboratory.

ENDS

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