Prof Tony Kouzarides

Professor Tony Kouzarides

Department of Pathology
Gurdon Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology
Cambridge

Throwing the switch: turning cancer genes on and off

Professor Tony Kouzarides and his team at The Gurdon Institute are studying how genes are switched on and off in healthy cells, and why this goes wrong in cancer.

Cancer cells have faulty patterns of gene activity, which mean that they multiply out of control. Our genes are made of DNA, which is packaged up with special proteins called histones. These proteins determine whether a gene is active or not.

Professor Kouzarides and his team are studying how cells make changes to their histones, and their ground-breaking research has uncovered several new features of this process. They are also investigating how these changes to histones affect the activity of important genes involved in cancer, switching them on or off.

Cancer Research UK has funded Professor Kouzarides' world-class research since the early 1990s. Over the years, he and his team have made many significant breakthroughs in understanding the complex processes that underlie the development of cancer.

Listen to an interview with Professor Kouzarides, explaining more about histones and their involvement in cancer:

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