Owen Glenn

New Zealand entrepreneur and benefactor Mr Owen Glenn has agreed to support the establishment of a Chair in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics within the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre at The University of Auckland. One of the Directors of the Centre, Professor Bill Denny, says that the new Chair will allow the Centre to take advantage of exciting international developments in sequencing of the human genome to develop new cancer therapies.

"Many cancers can be dealt with by currently available drugs in the early stages, but then return as forms resistant to existing therapies", says Professor Denny. "The fact that it will soon be possible to sequence the genome of cancer patients for a couple of thousand dollars means that we will be able to identify the mutations that cause these resistant forms of cancer and develop new drugs to target them specifically".

Mr Glenn, who has been a major supporter of the University through its Business School and South Pacific Centre for Marine Science at Leigh, said that he was delighted to be able to assist the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre in establishing this important new chair. "This is a truly world class research group", he said, "and I hope that my support will allow it to adopt new research techniques that will keep it at the forefront of international cancer drug development".

The Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre has already brought eight new cancer drugs to clinical trials, and has another four selected for trials. Seven of these have been the first of their type in the world. Professor Denny says that, with Mr Glenn's support, the Centre will soon begin an international search for a leading expert in molecular cancer therapeutics to fill the newly established chair.