Prof Tony Kouzarides

Tony Kouzarides is Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Cambridge. He is Deputy Director of the Gurdon Institute and Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute.

Tony did his PhD at the University of Cambridge and postdoctoral work at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology on the cancer inducing potential of human cytomegalovirus. He then went to NYU Medical Center in New York where he worked on the c-Fos onco-protein and the characterization of the leucine zipper. He returned to Cambridge to lead a research group at the Gurdon Institute.

Tony's research group at the Gurdon Institute is focused on epigenetic modifications on Chromatin, RNA and DNA and their involvement in cancer. His laboratory identified one of the first enzymes that modify chromatin, the acetyltransferase CBP and many other modification pathways directed at chromatin, such as deimination, proline isomerization, tyrosine phosphorylation and glutamine methylation. His work has demonstrated many links between epigenetic modifications and cancer. Most recently the Kouzarides group in collaboration with GSK showed that a small molecule inhibitor I-BET is effective against epigenetic pathways leading to MLL-leukaemia. The I-BET compound is currently in clinical trials in Cambridge and elsewhere.

Tony is part of the Executive Board of the Cambridge Cancer Centre and a founder/director of Cambridge Gravity, a philanthropic vehicle at Cambridge University. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of two Institutes on Spain (CRG in Barcelona and CABIMER in Seville). He is the founder of a cancer charity based in Spain called "Vencer el Cancer" (Conquer Cancer), which raises public funds from the Spanish public to fund research on cancer.

Tony is a co- founder and director (1998-2012) of Abcam plc, (a publicly trading research reagents company) and a co-founder and director (2001-2003) of a drug discovery company, Chroma Therapeutics (based in Oxford) and a co-founder and director (2016-) of a drug discovery company STORM Therapeutics (based in Cambridge).

Tony has been elected member of the European Molecular Biology organization, is a Fellow of the British Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and is a Cancer Research UK Gibbs Fellow. He has been awarded the Wellcome Trust medal for research in biochemistry related to medicine (UK), the Tenovus Medal (UK), the Bodossaki Foundation prize in Biology (Greece), the Bijvoet Medal (Holland), the Biochemical Society Award Novartis Medal and Prize (UK) and the Heinrich Wieland Prize (Germany).