David Lawrence Becker

Team • Leigh Madden, Research Associate • Chua Jia Wang, PhD Student • Kwek Sheng Yi Milton, PhD Student • Erica Teo Mei Ling, PhD Student • Zi Xin Ong, PhD Student • Carmen Loh Jia Wen, PhD Student Professor David Becker is Professor in Tissue Repair and Regeneration at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University. Prior to this appointment, Prof Becker spent most of his scientific career at the world-renowned University College London (UCL), UK. After obtaining his PhD at UCL in 1988, he worked as a Research Fellow there until he was awarded a prestigious 10 year Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 1994. He was made a Lecturer at UCL in 1999, Reader in 2005 and Full Professor in 2008. Prof Becker is internationally recognised for his contributions to the biology of gap junctional communication in development and disease. He has provided fundamental insights into the regulation of connexins in wounded skin and contributed to the discovery of ways to speed up acute wound healing whilst reducing inflammation and scar formation; and more importantly kicking start healing when it has stalled as in the case of chronic ulcers. This work has resulted in a thirty patents and over 100 papers and book chapters. His professional experience includes evaluating research grants and fellowships for over twenty international funding bodies including the Wellcome Trust, MRC, BBSRC, NSF and NHS. His work is highly relevant as it is translational in the field of chronic wounds where there is a large unmet medical need. He has won several awards for his business plans and these, along with the science, supported the formation of a biotech company, CoDaTherapeutics, which has raised over $70M to commercialise the wound healing technology. Phase 2a clinical trials on diabetic foot ulcers and Phase 2B trials on venous leg ulcers have proven to be effective.