Charles Swanton

Charles Swanton leads the TRACERx consortium, the most comprehensive longitudinal study of tumor evolution in non-small cell lung cancer, which has revealed the branching evolutionary architecture of tumors and demonstrated that chromosomal instability drives intratumor heterogeneity and therapy resistance. His research at the Francis Crick Institute has shown that parallel evolution of the same genes across different tumor regions reflects strong selective pressures and has identified clonal neoantigens as optimal immunotherapy targets. His work has fundamentally reshaped oncology by establishing that understanding tumor evolution is essential for effective cancer treatment.