BRIEF—ICR announces appointment of new CEO

Professor Kristian Helin, a world-leading cancer researcher with exceptional leadership experience in three different countries, will become chief executive of the UK’s Institute of Cancer Research, in September.

Prof Helin is a pioneer in understanding how changes to the way the DNA code is read and translated into protein can lead to cancer. He was the founding Director of a scientific institute in his homeland of Denmark, led research centres in Italy and the US, and co-founded a successful biotech company.

His appointment underlines the international reputation of The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and its ability to attract globally recognized scientific leaders to work here in the UK. Prof Helin will join the ICR on September 1, 2021, from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in the US, where he is  Chair of the Cell Biology Program and  Director of the Center for Epigenetics Research (CER) at MSK.

He spent 15 years as director of BRIC – a major biotech and innovation institute at the University of Copenhagen – and was also a Unit and Division Director at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan.

He will take over as CEO from Prof Paul Workman, who announced in December 2019 his intention to step down once a new CEO with world-class scientific and leadership credentials had been recruited. Prof Workman will continue as CEO until the end of August to ensure a smooth leadership transition.00