Allan Bradley

Former Senior Group Leader & Director Emeritus

Alumni

This person is a member of Sanger Institute Alumni.

Allan Bradley and his research team moved to the University of Cambridge in 2019. This page is being maintained as a historical record of his research at the Sanger Institute and is no longer being updated

Allan served as the Institute’s Director from 2000 to 2010. During his ten-year tenure he shifted the Institute’s scientific programmes from a sequence production and informatics to a more genetically and biologically focused academic genome centre. He emphasised investment in young scientists, recruiting a cadre of young PIs, established international PhD programs for both basic and clinically trained candidates.

Professor Bradley led a research group through his tenure as Institute Director and continues to do so as a Senior Group Leader. Allan’s laboratory environment emphasises intellectual rigour but with a flair for innovation and creativity. His laboratory’s research is strongly focused on using genetics to discover genes involved in various biological systems, using somatic mutagenesis in mice to discover cancer genes and genetic screens in ES cells in culture. He is considers himself to be an “educator”, inspiring and mentoring graduate students and fellows. His laboratory is an active and successful training environment for postdoctoral and clinical fellows. Professor Bradley places special emphasis in mentoring and preparing young scientists for independent academic positions both in the UK and globally. Laboratory alumni include 22 independent PIs in 6 countries of whom 10 are full professors, or equivalent.

Allan is also a serial entrepreneur, establishing several biotechnology companies. While in the USA he founded two companies; Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc. is publicly traded while Spectral Genomics Inc. was acquired. In 2010 he founded Kymab Ltd., which now employs more than 80 scientists. Many of Prof. Bradley’s trainees have joined these spin-outs.

My timeline

• Publication of Complete humanization of immunoglobulin loci in mice

• Chief Technical Officer Kymab Limited (part time)

• ISTT Prize

• Chief Scientific Officer Kymab Limited (part time)

• Stepped down as Director of the Sanger Institute

• Founded Kymab Limited

• Elected EMBO Member

• Peter Debye Prize

• Elected Fellow of Academy of Medical Sciences

• Elected Fellow of The Royal Society

• Appointed Director of the Sanger Centre

• Founded Spectral Genomics Inc

• Appointed Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator

• Appointed Full Professor, Baylor College of Medicine

• Founded Lexicon Genetics

• Publication of Chromosome Engineering

• Appointed Associate Professor, Baylor College of Medicine

• Publication of p53 and Rb knockouts

• Appointed Assistant Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

• Publication of first knockout generated via ES cells

• Appointed Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine

• Beit Memorial Fellow

• Publication of germ line transmission of ES cells

• PhD Genetics, Cambridge UK

• BA Genetics, Cambridge UK