Professor of Translational Virotherapies at Cardiff University
Director of Wales Applied Virology Unit

Professor Parker gained his PhD at the CRUK Institute for Cancer Studies at the University of Birmingham. His first postdoctoral position was at King’s College London, then at the University of Glasgow he gained independent funding as a Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Fellow to develop improved adenoviral vectors for cardiovascular gene therapy applications. He relocated to Cardiff to develop an independent team developing “precision virotherapies” for oncology applications.

Alan’s work spans basic virology to translational oncology and involves the manipulation and engineering of adenoviruses into advanced therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancers. He leads a thriving research lab within the Division of Cancer and Genetics at Cardiff University, which is focused on several aspects of adenovirology, with the overarching aim of developing more selective and efficacious virotherapies for translational applications in cancer. The first targeted agent from his laboratory is entering first-in-human clinical trials in 2025.

Passionate about enhancing Early Career Researchers (ECR) career prospects, Alan recently completed a decade-long stint as a board member of the British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, latterly as the society’s treasurer. In this role he established and ran a subcommittee devoted to development of ECRs and established small grants and funding schemes to promote ECR-related activities.