Rob Slack

Biography

I have worked at GlaxoSmithKline for the last 14 years in a number of different areas of R&D that have spanned from very early stage drug discovery through to pre-clinical and clinical experience with late stage assets. My primary role throughout this time has been as a pharmacologist using my skills to aid in identification of potential small molecule drugs and determine their mechanism of action in in vitro cellular, biochemical and tissue assays, as well as in vivo studies, of which I have managed the design and development. During this time I have been part of and led numerous drug discovery programme and project teams delivering a range of candidate compounds for clinical profiling in a wide range of disease areas with the most recent and main focus being diseases of the respiratory tract. This has involved cross-matrix management of collaborations with extra-departmental biology, chemistry and DMPK groups (screening and compound profiling, biological reagent and assay design, computational & structural chemistry etc...) as well as managing outsourced in vitro and in vivo studies at external academic laboratories and fee for service biotech companies. I have extensive experience of managing large multi-disciplinary teams delivering high quality drug candidates for clinical studies. In addition, throughout this time I have also been involved in numerous projects associated with process improvement covering both scientific and non-scientific areas e.g. IT solutions, software package selection, laboratory efficiency etc...

Research Interest

Key Skills: Management, Leadership, Clinical Translational Studies, Lead Optimisation, Project Management, Clinical Development, Pharmacology, Radioligand Binding Studies, Functional Pharmacology Studies, In vitro Cellular, Biochemical and Human Tissue Assay Development, In vivo study management, Mechanism of Action Studies, Radiation Protection Supervisor.