# Christopher Lord

Source: https://onco.cc/people/chris-lord/  
OnCo record `chris-lord` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Co-discovered the synthetic lethality between PARP inhibition and BRCA loss that underlies PARP inhibitor therapy.

## Summary

Christopher Lord is Professor of Cancer Genomics and Deputy Director of the Breast Cancer Now Research Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research. His specialisms are synthetic lethality, PARP inhibitors, DNA repair and drug resistance, with a focus on PARP and BRCA1/BRCA2. With Alan Ashworth he showed that BRCA-deficient cells are exquisitely sensitive to PARP inhibition, reported in Nature as a strategy for targeting the DNA repair defect in BRCA mutant cells, the discovery that underlies PARP inhibitor therapy. He has since mapped resistance mechanisms and new synthetic-lethal targets, and his Science review covered PARP inhibitors and synthetic lethality in the clinic. His publications are listed on PubMed.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Role: Professor of Cancer Genomics; Deputy Director, Breast Cancer Now Research Centre, ICR
- Specialisms: Synthetic lethality; PARP inhibitors; DNA repair; Drug resistance

## Sources

- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Lord%20CJ%5BAuthor%5D%20PARP%20synthetic%20lethality

## Connected records

- technologies: [PARP inhibitors](https://onco.cc/technologies/parp-inhibitor/), [Synthetic lethality approaches](https://onco.cc/technologies/synthetic-lethality-approaches/)
- targets: [BRCA1 / BRCA2 (HRD)](https://onco.cc/targets/brca/), [PARP](https://onco.cc/targets/parp/)
- institutions: [The Institute of Cancer Research](https://onco.cc/institutions/icr-london/)
- terms: [Synthetic lethality](https://onco.cc/terms/synthetic-lethality/)
- ideas: [Scale up public drug development that takes academic assets to phase 1](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-national-drug-development-office/)

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