Research Interests

Professor de Bono is the Deputy Director of the Drug Development Unit, at the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital Development Unit, becoming head of this team and taking up Professor Stan Kaye’s role later in 2011. The Drug Development Unit is a facility dedicated to the conduct of first in man early clinical trials and the Pharmacological audit trail (PhAT), as well as first in man drug combinations, focusing on investigating both proof of mechanism and proof of concept in hypothesis testing and biomarker driven early clinical trials.

Professor de Bono and the drug development team have outlined their vision for the conduct of translational research and biomarker driven early anticancer drug development in several manuscripts, some of which are listed and detailed below:

1. de Bono JS and Ashworth A. Translating cancer research into targeted therapeutics. Nature 2010; 467: 543-549.
2. Yap TA, Sandhu, SK, Workman P, de Bono JS. Envisioning the future of early anticancer drug development. Nature Reviews Cancer 2010; 10: 514-23.
3. Carden CP, Sarker D, Postel-Vinay S, Yap TA, Attard G, Banerji U, Garrett MD, Thomas GV, Workman P, Kaye SB, de Bono JS. Can molecular biomarker-based patient selection in Phase I trials accelerate anticancer drug development? Drug Discovery Today, 2010; 15(3-4):88-97.
4. Carden CP, Banerji U, Kaye, SB, Workman, de Bono JS.  From darkness to light with biomarkers in early clinical trials. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics  2009 85:2; 131-131.
5. Workman P, de Bono JS. Targeted therapeutics for cancer treatment: Major progress towards personalised molecular medicine. Current Opinion in Pharmacology. Current Opinion in Pharmacology 2008; 8(4):359-62.

Early Anti-Cancer Clinical Drug Development

Our Drug Development Centre comprises a dedicated inpatient and outpatient facility for the treatment of cancer patients who have advanced cancer with little or no treatment options available. It is staffed by almost one hundred staff members including more than twelve physicians dedicated to drug development, with an ongoing drug development Research Fellowship program with or without translational research leading to a postgraduate degree (PhD or MD (Research)).

New Drugs for Prostate Cancer

Professor de Bono has a primary interest in biomarker driven early anticancer drug development but also focuses on developing novel targeted therapeutics for the treatment of patients with metastatic castration refractory prostate cancer (CRPC) in collaboration with Professor David Dearnaley and Dr Chris Parker.

Utilising Biomarkers

Professor Johann de Bono is committed to the utilization of biomarkers to accelerate anticancer drug development of rationally designed anticancer drugs. This includes the determination of optimal drug dosing and scheduling by pharmacodynamic studies; the enrichment of patients based on putative predictive biomarkers in order to commence the clinical qualification of these assays in Phase I trials; the evaluation of biomarkers as intermediate endpoints of clinical benefit and overall survival.