Roland Wolf's Biography

Roland Wolf, Director, University of Dundee

Roland Wolf graduated from the University of Surrey in 1972 with a BSc Honours in Chemistry followed by a PhD in Biochemistry finishing in 1975. He currently holds the position of Research Director at the University of Dundee Medical Research Institute and is also an Honorary Director at the Cancer Research UK Molecular Pharmacology Unit. Finally Roland is the Scientific Director at CXR Biosciences, based in Dundee, UK. Roland’s main research interests are understanding the pathways which determine the sensitivity of cells to drugs, environmental agents and chemical toxins, particularly molecular and genetic studies on how chemical agents interact with cells, how this influences their therapeutic and toxicological properties and how genetic polymorphisms in the genes involved relate to disease susceptibility, adverse drug pharmacology and toxicology. Specific current projects focus on preclinical drug development, pharmacogenetics, cancer therapy, the personalised treatment of cancer and chemoprevention. He has published over 460 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is a member of numerous national and international committees and advisory panels. In 2001 Roland co-founded CXR Biosciences, which has a major focus on developing new models to accelerate the drug development process and reduce attrition when drugs enter man. Awarded an OBE in the 2010 New Year Honours List, Roland is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce and the British Toxicology Society. Roland is also recipient of the Gerhard Zbinden Award for contributions to the area of drug and chemical safety, the European Scientific Achievement Award 2005 from the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX) and Scottish Enterprise Award for Leading Individual Contribution to Life Sciences in Scotland in 2006.