New methods towards efficient and high-throughput drug-target screening

Benjamin Housden, Research Fellow, University of Exeter

Dr Benjamin Housden is a multidisciplinary scientist with over 15 years of experience working in the areas of molecular biology, drug-target discovery and technology development. He performed his PhD under Professor Sarah Bray’s supervision at the University of Cambridge working on the Notch signalling pathway. He then went on to work for six years as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School with Professor Norbert Perrimon. During this time, he developed new technologies for the generation of disease models and synthetic lethal screening. 

In 2017, Ben established his research group at the Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, where he has developed multiple new technologies for high-throughput genetic screening. This includes methods to improve the transfer of candidate drug targets between model systems and to improve both the efficiency and data quality from genetic screens. Ben is now applying these new methods to identify optimal candidate drug targets to treat a range of tumorigenic and neurodegenerative disorders.