Professor Steve Pollard

Biography

Steve is the Professor of Stem Cell and Cancer Biology at the University of Edinburgh. His PhD studies in developmental genetics were performed at the NIMR in Mill Hill, London (now The Francis Crick Institute). As a postdoctoral scientist with Prof Austin Smith FRS at the University of Cambridge his research focussed on gene regulation in mammalian stem cell biology. Latterly, as a Wellcome Beit Fellow, he uncovered the core transcriptional and epigenetic programs that operate in neural stem cells and revealed these are often highjacked by brain cancers, such as glioblastoma.He established his own independent laboratory in 2010 at the UCL Cancer Institute (London), before moving in 2013 to the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre in Edinburgh. He held the prestigious Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Senior Fellowship and, in 2017, was promoted to full Professor.His laboratory continues to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate stem cell identity and differentiation and how these operate in the context of human cancer. He is currently the Director of the CRUK Brain Cancer Centre of Excellence and Associate Director of the CRUK Scotland Centre. He is part of the senior leadership team for the Mammalian UK Synthetic Biology Research Centre, based in Edinburgh. In 2024 this has transitioned into one of the new UK Engineering Biology Hubs. In 2023, Steve founded Trogenix, a new biotech that combines many of his team's discoveries and platforms spanning human cancer models, synthetic biology, gene therapy, and immuno-oncology. Trogenix aims to become the global leader in programming and reprogramming the cell states using genetic medicine, creating uniquely differentiated precision therapeutics for significant unmet needs.