Professor nominated for pioneering drug research

Professor David Becker (UCL Cell and Developmental Biology) is one of seven  finalists nominated for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's 2010 Innovator of the Year Award competition. The finalists are competing for a £5,000 prize in each of three categories ? Commercial Innovator, Social Innovator and Most Promising Innovator ? and one of them will be crowned overall Innovator of the Year 2010, receiving a further £5,000. Professor Becker and his colleague Professor Colin Green, from Auckland University in New Zealand, have developed a drug called Nexagon, a gel that can be applied to wounds to make them heal faster ? or in the case of chronic wounds, stimulate them to heal. Chronic wounds represent one of the most significant and growing unmet medical needs in the world today, with only a handful of treatments available. Nexagon targets a protein responsible for cell-cell communication. This protein needs to be removed in the cells at the edge of a wound in order for them to migrate forward and close it. In the case of chronic wounds, cells produce too much of the protein and fail to migrate.