Professor John A. Rudd

Professor Rudd is a pharmacologist who worked with Glaxo Group Research in the late 1980s to explore the potential use of the 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, ondansetron, to antagonize chemotherapy- and drug-induced emesis. He pioneered the use of the ferret to model chemotherapy-induced acute and delayed emesis and discovered that NK1 tachykinin antagonists could be used to prevent the acute and delayed phases of emesis induced by cisplatin: now NK1 tachykinin antagonists are a cornerstone of treatment for delayed emesis. Recently, he collaborated with Helsinn Heathcare on the development of the second generation 5-HT3 and NK1 receptor antagonists. He has worked with almost 30 pharmaceutical companies on drug discovery projects with an emphasis on drug safety. Most approaches to profiling drugs are based on drug receptor binding profiles or effects on the genome; these are mostly derived from isolated cells, which may not express multiple targets. These approaches are rather static, and the assays used are too focused to be able to model the action of drugs that may not be specific. Understanding the drug discovery process, he formed spin-off company, Gut Rhythm R&D (HK) Ltd. He is also the founding vice president of the Hong Kong Laboratory Animal Sciences Society.