Alan James Munro is a British immunologist and entrepreneur.
Education
Munro was educated at the Edinburgh Academy. He attended the University of Cambridge, specialising in biochemistry. His Doctor of Philosophy in the area of protein synthesis was supervised by Asher Korner at the Department of Biochemistry (1964), and his early posts were in this department (1963-1968).
Career
His collaborators during this period include Tim Hunt. He joined the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge in 1968 to set up a cellular immunology programme. In 1971, he joined the Immunology Division of the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge.
He spent sabbatical years at the Salk Institute, Louisiana Jolla, United States of America (1965-1966) and University of Leiden, the Netherlands (1976-1977).
He became acting head of the Pathology Department in 1987. His research interests during this period included the regulation of the immune response and the generation of therapeutic antibodies.
He was instrumental in the early investigation of the Campath series of antibodies, which eventually resulted in the cancer treatment, alemtuzumab. In 1988, Munro spent a sabbatical year working in the biotechnology company Celltech.
He left the university in 1989 to co-found the highly successful Cambridge-based biotechnology company Immunology Limited, later renamed Cantab Pharmaceuticals plc (now part of Celtic Pharma), specialising in therapeutic vaccines and immunotherapy, and he acted as its scientific director until 1995.
He was also Chairman of Lorantis Limited, another Cambridge-based immunology company. He served as Master of Christ"s College, Cambridge 1995–2002, being particularly active in establishing the college"s fundraising campaign for the 2005 quincentenary. As of 2006, Munro chairs the New Agents Committee of Cancer Research United Kingdom and holds non-executive directorships of Blackwell Publishing Limited and Paradigm Therapeutics.