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Adjacent Space: Cancer Prevention
AI for Aging and Cancer Prevention
This project focuses on developing a multi-modal AI platform to identify cancer prevention targets, integrating genomic, transcriptomic, histopathological, and clinical data. The fellow will start by fine-tuning a foundation model on lung cancer biology which will then be refined and validated with large-scale genotype, clinical, and environmental exposure data from the UK Biobank and other datasets. Key research goals include unraveling the impact of environmental and genetic factors on tumour initiation and identifying inflammatory targets for preventive interventions This project provides a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of deep learning, multi-omics integration, and translational cancer research, with real-world applications in next-generation cancer prevention.
Charlie Swanton's Lab
The Francis Crick Institute
,
London
Swanton Lab
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Charlie Swanton
Professor, Deputy Clinical Director
Professor Charles Swanton, FRCP BSc PhD, is a clinician scientist dedicated to understanding and addressing the challenges of cancer evolution. He completed his PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories as part of the UCL MBPhD programme and later trained as a CRUK-funded postdoctoral clinician scientist. Charlie is an active clinician, as well as leading the CRUK TRACERx clinical study on lung cancer evolution and co-directs the CRUK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence. He has published over 210 papers in leading journals, contributing key insights into intratumour heterogeneity and cancer evolution. His work has revealed mechanisms driving cancer initiation resistance, and treatment failure, including the role of air pollution, genome instability, HLA loss, and APOBEC-mediated mutagenesis. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society and has previously attracted over >$175m USD in commercial funding to support Achilles Therapeutics and $100m USD investment from AstraZeneca to support the MeRmaiD minimal residual disease phase 3 clinical trials. Previous accolades include the Stand Up to Cancer Translational Cancer Research Prize, the GlaxoSmithKline Biochemical Society Prize, and the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre Kraft Prize. Charles serves as the Cancer Research UK Chief Clinician and holds a Napier Professorship in Cancer from the Royal Society.
