Helleday Laboratories

About us

The overall aim of the Helleday laboratories is to improve the treatment of cancer by exploiting cancer defects in order to tailor specific drugs for all types of cancer, with minimal side-effects. We work under the ethic "from bench to bedside" covering both basic research and translational work and are fortunate to have a number of collaborations across a range of disciplines. Our basic research involves building an understanding of the mechanisms of action of current DNA damaging agents, in particular at replication forks. We are also interested in replication lesions and the characterisation of pathways repairing these. On the translational side, we are working on identifying synthetic lethal interactions in the DNA repair network in order to find drug targets for cancer therapy. Once identified, we wish to identify small molecule inhibitors against them that we can then go on and test in in vivo tumour models and ultimately use to treat patients in the clinic.

Professor Thomas Helleday

Thomas Helleday is Swedish and obtained his first degree in molecular biology at the Stockholm University (1995). Alongside these studies, he took a degree in Business Administration and Economics at the same university (1996). In 1999, he was awarded a PhD from Stockholm University for his studies on homologous recombination in mammalian cells.

After a short post-doctoral research period with Mark Meuth at the Institute for Cancer Research, Sheffield, UK, he obtained a lectureship at the same institute and set up his own group, with an interest in homologous recombination at replication forks in mammalian cells. At the same time, he maintained grants and a position at the Stockholm University, allowing his group to continue research at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Toxicology. Read more ...

Phase II trial of the oral PARP inhibitor olaparib

A successful case:

Marie had her third relapse of ovarian cancer and contacted Thomas Helleday after she had heard about the PARP inhibitor treatment. She was entered into the trial and the cancer was eradicated.

"Naturally, I am extremely happy and impressed by your work. There are of course not enough words to describe how grateful I am, both for myself and for my children and family's sake. It gives real hope of breaking the chain of cancer in the family. I hope that it will soon appear on the market so that more can be helped by it."

Marie, Stockholm.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

News/Blog

Helleday lab scores double doctor's hat-trick

This Spring and Summer has been an eventful time for the Helleday group, with no fewer than six of our students taking the leap into doctordom.

ERC Advanced grant goes to Thomas Helleday

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Thomas Helleday 2.5 million euros over 5 years for the project “Genetic Networks as a tool for anti-Cancer Drug-Development”. Read more ...

Nytt forskningsrön ger hopp för cancerpatienter

Forskare vid Stockholms universitet och Stockholm Science For Life Laboratory, SciLifeLab, har hittat ett nytt sätt att avgöra om en cancerbehandling fungerar. Read more ...

See full helleday laboratories blog.

Job opportunities

Postdoc opportunities

We are currently advertising two postdoctoral positions to SciLifeLab, Karolinska institutet:

1. Postdoc in (chemo-)-genetic interactions. See here for more info (deadline 8th January).

2. Postdoc position in Genetic Instability in Cancer Treatments. See here for more info (deadline 23rd January).

PhD studentships

We will be recruiting new PhD students to our Stockholm group in due course. A requirement to be accepted is that you must have done a 6 month minimum diploma or Master's project in our group. If you are interested in a future PhD position in the Helleday laboratory and would first like to do a 6 month project, please contact Professor Helleday at helleday@gmt.su.se with a CV, a copy of your course grades and a brief description of your background.