Dr Robert D. Ladner, PhD is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of CV6 Therapeutics and a leading translational cancer scientist with over two decades of experience in oncology drug development. In 2015, he was appointed Reader in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast, where he has been instrumental in advancing research into novel cancer therapeutics.

Dr. Ladner earned his MSc and PhD from Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where his pioneering research led to the identification and characterization of human dUTPase and its variants. He was among the first to elucidate the role of uracil-DNA misincorporation in chemotherapy resistance, laying the groundwork for a new class of targeted cancer therapeutics. His discoveries established a critical link between dUTPase overexpression and clinical resistance to 5-fluorouracil in colorectal cancer.

In 2004, Dr. Ladner joined the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center as Assistant Professor, where he launched a translational research program focused on developing novel chemotherapeutics that target uracil-DNA repair pathways. A decade later, he founded CV6 Therapeutics with a mission to develop first-in-class therapies that enhance the effectiveness of cornerstone treatments for cancer and inflammatory diseases.

Dr Ladner is a member of the Board of Directors for CV6 Therapeutics Inc. and CV6 Therapeutics (NI) Ltd.