Journeys into the genome of cancer cells

I come from a family in which there have been no scientists or doctors. I was interested, however, in biology at school and started my scientific career by training in medicine at Oxford University and Guys Hospital, London. Practising as a doctor reinforced my curiosity about the biological processes underlying human disease. As a consequence, I pursued a clinical vocation in histopathology, a discipline that couples exposure to the sights and smells of the autopsy room with a daily journey into the often beautiful, sometimes ugly world of healthy and diseased human tissues under the microscope. After an introduction to general histopathology in Nick Wright's department at the Hammersmith Hospital, London, I completed my postgraduate medical training in neuropathology with Peter Lantos at the Maudsley Hospital, London.Peering at the nuclei of cancer cells under the microscope, for me it was a matter of fascination that hidden within them were the key events converting normal cells into cancer cells, and frustration because they were out of reach. Many of the tissue samples examined by pathologists are from cancers. The clonal theory of cancer development and the general role of DNA mutations in generating cancer cell clones had been established by 1986 when I was working as a junior pathologist. Indeed, the first mutated cancer gene, HRAS , had recently been identified through application of the, then new, technologies of recombinant DNA technology. Peering at the nuclei of cancer cells under the microscope, for me it was a matter of fascination that hidden within them were the key events converting normal cells into cancer cells, and frustration because they were out of reach.So, I took 3 years break from medicine to study for a PhD, learning the methods and thinking of molecular oncology in Colin Cooper's laboratory at the Institute …