Dr Allan Jordan

Dr Allan Jordan joined the CRUK Manchester Institute Drug Discovery Centre in July 2009 as Head of Chemistry. He gained a BSc in Chemistry from UMIST in 1993 and, after a short spell as a teaching assistant in Arizona, he returned to UMIST to conduct post-graduate research into anticancer natural products. Following post-doctoral work at the University of Reading, he joined RiboTargets in Cambridge (now Vernalis) where he worked on a number of therapeutic areas at various stages of the research pipeline. Alongside involvement in a number of oncology programmes, ultimately leading to the clinical evaluation of Hsp90 inhibitors in conjunction with Novartis, he became involved in CNS research programmes where he was a project leader on a GPCR drug discovery programme and was also involved in the management of Vernalis’ clinical programme for Parkinson’s disease.

In his present role, alongside responsibilities for management of the chemistry team and progression of the drug discovery portfolio, he oversees the group’s capabilities in computational chemistry and chemoinformatics and has strategic responsibilities for outsourcing, hit finding and structural biology provision.