Division of Medicine, University College London (UCL)
Jim Owen is Emeritus Professor of Molecular Medicine at UCL with much of his career spent at the Royal Free Campus. His connection with UFPE began in the 1970s when he was a British Council sponsored Lecturer in the Dept de Bioquímica, studying the abnormal plasma and membrane lipid profiles in human and experimental schistosomiasis. At UCL, this background led to a focus on non-cholesterol HDL functions and ApoE cell signaling, which in turn directed him to gene-based therapeutics, including viral gene transfer, gene editing and splice-switching oligonucleotides. These studies were relevant to understanding and treating diverse clinical disorders, including liver, cardiovascular and renal diseases, parasitic infections (schistosomiasis and African sleeping sickness) and Alzheimer’s disease.
Facilitated by Prof Owen numerous UFPE and LIKA researchers have studied at the Royal Free and UCL, including PhD students (two awards) and recipients of Brazil’s Science Without Borders (Ciência sem Fronteiras, CsF) programme. This close co-operation often aided by Santander awards [3] has helped LIKA promote International Symposia on Diagnostics & Therapeutics and on Rare Diseases, which are prevalent in Northeast Brazil. The Xth and Vth of these were held in 2019 and attended by the distinguished Deputy State Governor of Pernambuco, José Maurício Cavalcanti shown with Prof Owen and the Director of LIKA, Professor José Luiz de Lima Filho.