Our new Medicine at the Crick event series showcases major advances in biomedical science and raises awareness of the medical implications of major scientific advances amongst the Crick and wider UK biomedical community. Each event comprises a series of talks and a panel discussion.

Our sixth event in the series, The new medicine of DNA repair pathways: damage repair vulnerabilities in cancer, will be hosted by Dr Simon Boulton (The Francis Crick Institute).

Loss of DNA repair pathways is an early and frequent event in tumorigenesis. DNA repair-deficient cancers often become critically dependent on backup DNA repair pathways, which present an “Achilles heel” that can be targeted to eliminate cancer cells. This is the basis of synthetic lethality and is exemplified by the success of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors in treating BRCA-deficient breast and ovarian cancers. However, new therapeutic strategies are urgently needed to overcome acquired and innate PARP inhibitor resistance and to exploit other DNA repair deficiencies. This meeting will discuss the discovery, development, success and clinical challenges of PARP inhibitors and the current efforts to develop new DNA repair inhibitors to exploit other vulnerabilities in cancer.

Speakers include ​​​Dr Graeme Smith (Artios Pharma), Prof Charlie Gourley (The University of Edinburgh), Prof Ruth Plummer (Newcastle University), Dr Agnel Sfeir (NYU School of Medicine/Repare Therapeutics), Dr Michael Zinda (Repare Therapeutics) and Ms Kate Bingham (SV Health Investors).