Robert Korneluk

Dr. Robert G. Korneluk is a Member of the Order of Canada (C.M.) and a professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa. He is also a Senior Scientist and the Scientific Director of the Apoptosis Research Centre at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and a Distinguished Professor of the University of Ottawa. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has received the prestigious McLaughlin Medal from the Society. He was an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for three 5-year terms (1997-2012). His laboratory studies fundamental aspects of apoptosis, an intrinsic mechanism by which a cell initiates a genetic process to commit programmed cell death.

Dr. Korneluk’s group identified, in 1995, the mammalian inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) genes, cIAP1, cIAP2, XIAP and NAIP. Since then, they have studied the role of the IAPs in normal cell function (immunity, neurobiology and myogenesis) and in disease (cancer, auto-immunity, AIDS, retinal eye disease, neurodegeneration, muscular dystrophy and skeletal muscle atrophy). Also, in the past several years Dr. Korneluk has been investigating the mechanism of action of a class of IAP antagonists, called Smac mimetics, which are small molecule compounds that potently degrade cIAP1, cIAP2 and XIAP, and which are in the clinic for the treatment of cancer. Dr. Korneluk’s current translational research program continues to investigate the utility of these small molecule drugs and their proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) derivatives for the treatment of cancer and other diseases