Robert Bob Hawkins

Robert “Bob” Hawkins, M.B.B.S., Ph.D. is a world-renowned medical oncologist and biotechnology innovator with a focus on the development of novel cell and gene therapies. Dr. Hawkins has been principal investigator on more than 20 clinical trials including several practice-changing studies in renal cancer. Dr. Hawkins was founder and CEO of Immetacyte Ltd., a cell therapy company spun out of the University of Manchester (U.K.), which developed the key technologies in Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TIL) now being advanced by Instil. He served as CEO of Immetacyte until the acquisition by Instil Bio in 2020 and became Chief Strategy Advisor. Dr. Hawkins joined the University of Manchester in 1998 and subsequently became Cancer Research UK Professor of Medical Oncology. At the University of Manchester, he led the first gene therapy trial for cancer and also conducted the first CAR-T trials in the UK. Dr. Hawkins has also led the largest European scientific consortium in engineered T cell therapy (ATTACK) and was a founding scientific advisory to Oxford Biomedica plc and Cambridge Antibody Technology plc (acquired by AstraZeneca plc).