Alastair D. G. Lawson PhD

Alastair joined Celltech in 1983, having obtained a Ph.D. at the Tenovus Research Laboratory at Southampton General Hospital in the UK, working on a patient-specific, antibody-based, therapy for B cell leukaemia. He has been closely involved with the discovery of UCB/Celltech’s therapeutic antibodies, including Mylotarg, Cimzia, Evenity, Besponsa, Artlegia, dapirolizumab pegol, bimekizumab and rozanolixizumab. Alastair led the development of UCB’s proprietary antibody variable region discovery platform and is now applying structure-based, rational design to antibody discovery. He has recently led the discovery of autonomous bovine antibody-derived knob domain peptides.

He pioneered UCB’s small molecule protein/protein interaction initiative, in which information derived from antibodies is applied to the discovery and design of new chemical entities. Current research interests include the use of function-modifying antibody fragments to define specific conformations of target proteins, linking X-ray crystallography, molecular dynamics simulations and antibody technology to small molecule drug discovery.