Ultan McDermott is the Head of the Functional Genomics Centre, and Chief Scientist at Oncology R&D, AstraZeneca. Ultan’s lifelong interest in understanding how cancer genomes impact response to therapy in the clinic has influenced his path as a clinician scientist. Most recently, his focus has been on the use of CRISPR screens and single cell sequencing to identify novel targets for cancer treatment.
Prior to joining AstraZeneca in 2018, Ultan worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Jeff Settleman at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre on high-throughput cancer cell line drug screens and resistance mechanisms. He also served as Group Leader and member of Faculty at the Wellcome Sanger Institute for 10 years. Ultan is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and continues to practice as an oncologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.