Peter Elliott

Peter Elliott (born August 19, 1958) is a British pharmacologist and drug developer who has initiated clinical trials across a range of disease areas, and is the co-developer of Velcade, a drug used to treat multiple myeloma. Early life and education Elliott was born in Cardiff, Wales and attended Llanishen High school before being accepted to study pharmacology at Chelsea College, University of London (1979-1981). During this period he spent a year gaining research experience at The Medical Clinic, Tubingen, Germany, working with Peter A. Berg on the autoimmune disease, Primary biliary cholangitis (1978-1980). After graduating, Elliott embarked upon a Ph.D, under the supervision of Leslie and Susan Iversen at Cambridge University, where he was a member of Trinity College (1981-1984). His research focused on the behavioural effects of neurokinins on catecholamine systems and was carried out at the Department of Psychology, and the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit (NCPU), at Addenbrookes Hospital. During his P.D, Elliott published seven research papers, including in the scientific journals, Nature and Science. The Nature paper was one of the first publications to utilize monoclonal antibodies as pharmaceutical tools. The monoclonal antibody to Substance P, used in the paper, was generated from an adjacent laboratory o César Milstein. Academic career In 1984, Elliott was granted a research Fellowship to work with Charles B. Nemeroff at the Department of Psychiatry, Duke University. There he investigated the role of neurotensin on dopamine systems in the central nervous system, in relation to psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. The following year he moved to Yale University & The Connecticut Mental Health Center to work with Michael J. Bannon (1985-1986) to investigate the effects of neurokinins on molecular aspects of dopamine systems, and their potential role in psychiatry, and in particular, their ability to modulate the tardive dyskinesias elicited by certain neuroleptics. Subsequently, Elliott took a post-doctoral position in the Pharmacology Department, McGill University (1986-1988) where he focused on animal models of Alzheimer's disease, as well as developing new monoclonal antibodies for research purposes.