Brian Leyland-Jones, MBBS, Ph.D.

Brian Leyland-Jones, BSc (Ist class Hons), MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FRCPC is the Chief Medical Officer of AIM-HI Accelerator Fund and the N OF 1 Mission, CSO of The Darwin Foundation, collectively devoted to the implementation of prevention and cure of malignancy globally. He sits on several national and international boards including AFCR, NED Biosystems, Non-Pareil, Ratio and is Director Emeritus for the WIN Consortium. He founded Xanthus, AKESOgen and Viviphi.

Dr. Leyland-Jones holds biochemistry, medical, and doctoral degrees from the University of London. Following residency training at Hammersmith, Brompton, St. Bartholomew’s and London hospitals, he completed a clinical pharmacology fellowship at Cornell University and a medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He then joined the academic staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and New York Hospitals with a special research interest in Early Phase clinical, clinical pharmacological and biomarker evaluation of many anticancer compounds, including the platinums and anthracycline analogs in use today. In 1983, he moved to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to head the Developmental Chemotherapy section. He was responsible for the overall development of approximately 70 anti-cancer compounds in various stages of transition from in-vitro screening to Phase III clinical trials. From 1990 to 2000, he served as founding chair of Oncology and director of the McGill University Comprehensive Cancer Centre. He recruited and built a broad multifaceted cancer centre, including a robust cross-hospital clinical trials enterprise. Dr. Leyland-Jones continued as the Minda de Gunzberg Chair in Oncology and professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada for 7 additional years, focusing on the development and biomarker strategies of several new targeted oncologic agents. He joined Emory University in 2007 as Director of the Winship Cancer Centre and Associate Vice-President of Health Sciences. Dr. Leyland-Jones was instrumental in building the Genomics Medicine Program at the Avera Cancer Institute where he was the Vice President of Molecular and Experimental Medicine from 2014-2019.

Dr. Leyland-Jones’ principal academic contributions have been in the fields of anticancer therapy development, the pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacogenetics of oncological clinical trials, the translation of preclinical models into the clinic, biomarker endpoints in Phase I/II clinical trials, and screening and mechanistic studies of novel targeted and chemotherapeutic anticancer agents. Dr. Leyland-Jones is the recipient of numerous research grants, and has served as principal, co-principal and co-investigator on more than 100 clinical studies. He has authored and co-authored more than 210 peer-reviewed articles and book contributions, 25 books and book chapters, 425 abstracts and 35 patents. He has a robust speaking and private consulting practice that takes him all over the world.