Michael Derek Waterfield

Abstract

Mike Waterfield was a biochemist with a passion for the application of state-of-the-art technology, and his developments in protein sequencing opened doors previously closed to the research community. Most profoundly, through the sequencing of platelet-derived growth factor and the epidermal growth factor receptor, Mike demonstrated that these growth-associated proteins were proto-oncogenes—they had been hijacked in experimental retroviral systems as drivers of cancer and, by inference, were likely targets for medical intervention. Mike exploited his sequencing capabilities in facilitating advances for many colleagues both within his home institute of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and then as director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) at University College London, as well as through many collaborators in the global research community. At the LICR, his own laboratory defined the complexity of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase) family and brought a deep understanding of these proteins and their pathobiology. Mike went on to develop inhibitors of these proteins, co-founding PiraMed, which, through the subsequent Roche acquisition, led to the approval of the PI 3-kinase inhibitor inavolisib.