Rhubarb 2024

An interview with stuart cook P rofessor Stuart Cook (Tilly’s, 1982-1987) sat down over the summer with Stephen Sparrow (Mac’s, 1983-1988) to talk about Stuart’s extraordinary medical science and business career. eureka moment for Stuart and his team came when, after three years of running experiments, they discovered that interleukin-11 (IL-11), a human protein, could play a role in tissue scarring and organ dysfunction and that IL-11 was also “druggable” (the expression medical scientists use for turning a research idea into a drug target that may be attacked with a drug to turn it off or on). He created Enleofen a “spin out” company from the University of Singapore which developed a proprietorial treatment for a range of fibro-inflammatory diseases through their patentable approach to utilising IL-11. Enleofen was soon snapped up by the pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim allowing Stuart to return home to England buy a plot of land in Oxfordshire and build his dream family home which was finally completed this August after three years of work. When we asked Stuart what he would offer as advice to his 15-year-old self, he said,‘Work hard and play hard. Be open to new ideas and constant learning and listen to other people. Find something you really like doing and are good at and work then becomes much more rewarding and enjoyable’. Hard work and resilience are the two most important contributors to his success, Stuart believes.‘You constantly are having to overcome setbacks in life as a scientist, whether not having a paper published or trials not providing the results you are looking for or people unfairly critiquing your work.You have to develop resilience and keep on going with a positive mindset.’

INTERVIEW

James Gallagher, the BBC’s Health and Science correspondent wrote an article for BBC News on 17th July 2024 focusing on a “Supermodel Granny” drug which has been shown to extend life in animals.This drug, currently in trials, has been developed as a result of the research work of OSE Professor Stuart Cook. Stuart is one of three Cook siblings educated at St Edward’s in the 1980s. His younger sister Helen Phillips was in Mac’s and, having headed HR at NatWest, is now on the School’s board of governors. His older brother James, who was also in Tilly’s, is a Professor of Zoology at Western Sydney University. Stuart took Chemistry, Physics, Maths and Further Maths for A Level and was leaning towards studying Engineering at university but at the last minute decided to apply for Medicine instead. He studied at Bart’s Medical School and did his junior houseman jobs in London and Bristol hospitals before embarking on a PhD in cardiology at Imperial College, London. He then followed that up by completing a postdoc at Harvard.After five years of further research and running research labs at the Hammersmith Hospital campus in London, he was made a professor by Imperial College at the tender age of 39. The “pivot” into developing groundbreaking medical drugs came in 2012 when Stuart was given a substantial grant from the Singapore government to set up a lab and research team at the Duke National University of Singapore.The

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