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Research into smoking

Around 50 years ago, one of our best known scientists, Professor Sir Richard Doll, was the first to show that smoking led directly to lung cancer. Today, smoking is known to be the single biggest cause of cancer in the world, and accounts for one in four UK cancer deaths.

The harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke increase the risk of more than a dozen types of cancer. You can read more about the links between smoking and cancer on our Healthy Living pages. Our researchers continue to investigate exactly how these chemicals damage cells throughout the body and contribute to the development of this disease.

One of Cancer Research UK’s aspirational goals for 2020 is that ‘The number of smokers will fall dramatically’. Importantly, our scientific experts in this field are striving to find effective new ways to help people successfully quit smoking. This work has the potential to save many thousands of lives in the future.

Below are some of the highlights of our smoking research portfolio.

Lung cancer

Prof David Balfour Prof David Balfour

Division of Pathology & Neuroscience

University of Dundee, Dundee

Understanding nicotine addiction

Professor David Balfour is based at the University of Dundee. His research is revealing the causes of tobacco dependence in smokers. He is also studying potential links between depression and nicotine addiction.

Prof Gerard Hastings Prof Gerard Hastings

Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Institute for Social Research

University of Stirling, Stirling

Finding new ways to reduce smoking rates

Professor Gerard Hastings is the Director of the Institute for Social Marketing and the Cancer Research UK Centre for Tobacco Control Research. His team is looking into the ways the tobacco industry encourages people to smoke and also how other social pressures affect smoking habits.

Prof Sir Richard Peto Prof Sir Richard Peto

Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit

University of Oxford, Oxford

Studying smoking and cancer, and improving clinical trials

Eminent cancer researcher Professor Sir Richard Peto is co-director of the Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit in Oxford. He is a leading figure in both the prevention and treatment of cancer, and helped to run a pioneering 50-year long study that further established the links between smoking and cancer. 

Prof Robert West Prof Robert West

Department of Epidemiology and Public Health

University College London, London

Helping people to quit smoking

Professor Robert West is Director of Tobacco Studies at the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre. He analyses smoking trends in the population to find out how many people smoke and how many are giving up. Smoking is a major cause of many different types of cancer, including lung cancer and oesophageal cancer. Professor West's research could have a dramatic impact on the number of cancer cases in the future and help to save even more lives.