Neil Carragher
Professor of Drug Discovery and Director of Science, Edinburgh Cancer Research, University of Edinburgh
- Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre
- MRC Institute of Genetics & Cancer
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 651 8690
- Director of the Edinburgh Cancer Discovery Unit and Edinburgh Phenotypic Assay Centre
- Institute of Genetics and Cancer
- Edinburgh Drug Discovery
Address
- Street
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Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre
MRC Institute of Genetics & Cancer
The University of Edinburgh
Western General Hospital
Crewe Road South - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH4 2XR
- Street
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PA : jan.irvine@ed.ac.uk
- City
- Post code
Background
Neil Carragher graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1992 with a BSc Honours degree in Cell and Immunobiology. He took up a position within the pharmaceutical industry at the Yamanouchi Research Institute in Oxford, where he also gained his PhD. He then held consecutive postdoctoral positions within the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, and the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow.
In 2004, Neil returned to industry as Principal Scientist with the Advanced Science and Technology Laboratory at AstraZeneca where he pioneered early multiparametric high-content phenotypic screening approaches. In 2010, he once again made the career switch from industry to academia taking up the post of Principal Investigator at the University of Edinburgh where he was subsequently appointed Professor of Drug Discovery (Personal Chair) in 2015 and Director of Science of Edinburgh Cancer Research in 2024.
Professor Carragher is Associate Director of the Cancer Research UK Scotland Centre; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; founding member and co-chair of the European Cell Based Assay Interest group; member of the Cancer Research UK Centre for Drug Development’s portfolio review panel; and member of the Tessa Jowell Brain Matrix Scientific Advisory Board. Previous positions have included President of the Society of Biomolecular Imaging and Informatics; Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, Institute Pasteur Korea; Deputy Chair of Cancer Research UK’s New Agents Committee; and Director of Translation for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh between 2018-2024.
Professor Carragher’s research is focussed on advancing the field of cell-based phenotypic drug discovery, working in close collaboration with several pharmaceutical industry partners and academic groups to identify hit compounds, advance therapeutic lead generation and classify compound mechanism-of-action through multiparametric high content profiling and bespoke image-analysis and machine learning workflows.
His research has contributed to the discovery and translation of several agents into clinical trials including NXP900 currently in phase 1 oncology trials and drug repurposing clinical trials in motor neuron disease. He is also co-founder and management consultant for the early-stage drug discovery spin out company PhenoTherapeutics Ltd.