{"entity":{"id":"thomas-helleday","kind":"person","name":"Thomas Helleday","aka":[],"tldr":"Co-discovered that PARP inhibitors kill BRCA-deficient cells, the synthetic lethality behind olaparib and its successors.","summary":"Thomas Helleday's laboratory published, back-to-back with Alan Ashworth's, the 2005 Nature paper showing that BRCA2-deficient cells are exquisitely sensitive to PARP inhibition, the discovery that led to olaparib, niraparib, rucaparib and talazoparib and established synthetic lethality as a drug-discovery strategy. He later developed the MTH1 inhibitor concept and continues to work on DNA repair targets.","asOf":"2026-09-10","links":[{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Helleday%20T%5BAuthor%5D%20PARP%20synthetic%20lethality"}],"tags":["parp","synthetic-lethality","discovery"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["parp-inhibitor","synthetic-lethality-approaches"],"targets":["parp","brca"],"drugs":["olaparib"],"companies":[],"institutions":["karolinska"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":["molecular-oncology"],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Professor of Chemical Biology, Karolinska Institutet; Professor, University of Sheffield","institutionId":"karolinska","specialisms":["DNA damage response","Synthetic lethality","PARP inhibitors","Drug discovery"],"profiles":[{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Helleday%20T%5BAuthor%5D%20PARP%20synthetic%20lethality"}],"papers":[{"title":"Specific killing of BRCA2-deficient tumours with inhibitors of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase","journal":"Nature","year":2005,"doi":"10.1038/nature03443"},{"title":"The underlying mechanism for the PARP and BRCA synthetic lethality: clearing up the misunderstandings","journal":"Molecular Oncology","year":2011,"doi":"10.1016/j.molonc.2011.07.001"}],"orcid":"0000-0002-7384-092X"},"route":"/people/thomas-helleday/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"parp-inhibitor","kind":"technology","name":"PARP inhibitors","route":"/technologies/parp-inhibitor/"},{"id":"synthetic-lethality-approaches","kind":"technology","name":"Synthetic lethality approaches","route":"/technologies/synthetic-lethality-approaches/"}],"target":[{"id":"brca","kind":"target","name":"BRCA1 / BRCA2 (HRD)","route":"/targets/brca/"},{"id":"parp","kind":"target","name":"PARP","route":"/targets/parp/"}],"drug":[{"id":"olaparib","kind":"drug","name":"Olaparib","route":"/drugs/olaparib/"}],"institution":[{"id":"karolinska","kind":"institution","name":"Karolinska University Hospital","route":"/institutions/karolinska/"}],"journal":[{"id":"molecular-oncology","kind":"journal","name":"Molecular oncology","route":"/journals/molecular-oncology/"}]}}