Michelle Garrett

Michelle Garrett is Professor of Cancer Therapeutics and Co-Director of the Institute of Health, Social Care and Wellbeing at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK (Institute of Health, Social Care and Wellbeing – Research – University of Kent). Michelle received her PhD from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) London, UK and then undertook post-doctoral studies at Yale University School of Medicine, USA, on a Lucille P. Markey International Research Fellowship.

In 1994 Michelle joined Onyx Pharmaceuticals, USA, where she went on to become a team leader involved in the discovery of cancer drugs targeting the cell division cycle, a collaboration with Pfizer, which led to the discovery of the CDK4 inhibitor Palbociclib (IBRANCE®). She then returned to the ICR in 1999 to take up a team leader position in the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, where her research specialised in the discovery and development of novel small molecule cancer therapeutics, focussed on signal transduction pathways and cell cycle checkpoints. 

Whilst at the ICR, Michelle became a Reader in Cancer Therapeutics and Head of Biology for the CRUK Cancer Therapeutics Unit.  Michelle was also a member of the joint ICR/Royal Marsden interdisciplinary team, which in 2012 won the prestigious AACR Team Science award. In September 2014 Michelle joined the School of Biosciences at the University of Kent where her research focusses on new cancer drug discovery and cancer drug resistance. She currently has two cancer drugs in clinical development, the AKT inhibitor AZD5363 (Capivasertib) and SRA737 (CCT245737), which targets the CHK1 kinase.