Charles Swanton Explained

Charles Swanton
Birth Name:	Robert Charles Swanton
Birth Place:	Poole, Dorset, England, UK
Fields:	Cancer evolution
Workplaces:	Francis Crick Institute University College London
Education:	St Paul's School, London
Alma Mater:	University College London (MD, PhD)
Thesis Title:	Viral cyclin disruption of mammalian cell cycle control mechanisms
Thesis Url:	http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.286205
Thesis Year:	1998
Doctoral Advisor:	Nic Jones
Awards:	Ellison–Cliffe Lecture (2017) EMBO Member (2017)
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(Robert) Charles Swanton is British physician scientist specialising in oncology and cancer research. Swanton is a senior group leader at London's Francis Crick Institute,^[1] Royal Society Napier Professor in Cancer^[2] and thoracic medical oncologist at University College London^[3] and University College London Hospitals,^[4] co-director of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence, and Chief Clinician of Cancer Research UK.^[5]

Early life and education

Swanton was born in Poole, Dorset. As of 2017, his father Robert Howard Swanton (MD, FRCP) was a consultant cardiologist at UCL.

Swanton was educated at St Paul's School, London and completed his PhD in 1999^[6] at what was then the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories (now the Francis Crick Institute) and his Cancer Research UK clinician scientist/medical oncology training in 2008.

Career

Swanton has combined his laboratory research with clinical duties as co-director of the CRUK Lung Cancer Centre, focussed on how tumours evolve over space and time.^[7] He has helped to define the branched evolutionary histories of solid tumours, processes that drive cancer cell-to-cell variation in the form of new cancer mutations or chromosomal instabilities, and the impact of such cancer diversity on effective immune surveillance and clinical outcome.^{[7] [8]}

As of 2018, Swanton has been a co-founder of Achilles Therapeutics^[9] with Sergio Quezada, Karl Peggs and Mark Lowdell. Achilles Therapeutics is a UCL/CRUK and Francis Crick Institute^[10] biotechnology company funded by Syncona^[11] that develops adoptive T cell therapies targeting clonal/truncal neo-antigens present in every tumour cell to limit drug resistance and tumour evolution.

Awards and honours

• 1997: Imperial Cancer Research Fund's (ICRF) Pontecorvo PhD thesis prize^[12]
• 2011: Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP)
• 2014: Jeremy Jass Prize in pathology
• 2015: Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci)^[13]
• 2015: Stand up to Cancer Translational Cancer Research Prize
• 2016: Glaxo Smithkline Biochemical Society Prize
• 2016: San Salvatore prize for Cancer Research^[14]
• 2017: CRUK Translational Research Prize in 2017,^[15]
• 2017: EMBO Member in 2017^[16]
• 2017: Ellison-Cliffe Medal by the Royal Society of Medicine
• 2018: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
• 2018: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre Kraft Prize^[17]
• 2018: Gordon Hamilton Fairley Medal and Lecture^[18]
• 2019: ESMO Translational Research Award
• 2020: Addario Lung Cancer Foundation Award and Lecture
• 2021: Weizmann Institute - Sergio Lambroso Award in Cancer Research
• 2021: Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research

Notes and References

1. Web site: Charles Swanton – The Francis Crick Institute. crick.ac.uk.
2. Web site: Leading scientists awarded Royal Society Research Professorships . royalsociety.org. Royal Society. 27 November 2018. Anon. 2016.
3. Web site: Iris View Profile . iris.ucl.ac.uk . 12 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170522065508/http://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=CSWAN79 . 22 May 2017 . dead.
4. Web site: The UCLH lung cancer service. uclh.nhs.uk. 27 November 2018.
5. Web site: Chief Executive and Executive Board . 27 September 2013 .
6. PhD. University College London (University of London). Viral cyclin disruption of mammalian cell cycle control mechanisms. Robert Charles. Swanton. 1998. . london.ac.uk. 941060556.
7. Web site: Professor Charles Swanton FMedSci FRS. Royal Society. London. Anon. 2018. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
8. Swanton. Charles. Mann. David J.. Fleckenstein. Bernhard. Neipel. Frank. Peters. Gordon. Jones. Nic. Herpes viral cyclin/Cdk6 complexes evade inhibition by CDK inhibitor proteins. Nature. 390. 6656. 1997. 184–187. 0028-0836. 10.1038/36606. 9367157. 1997Natur.390..184S. 4397584.
9. Web site: Our Team – Achilles Therapeutics. achillestx.com. 27 November 2018.
10. Web site: UCL spin-out Achilles Therapeutics to develop immunotherapies for cancer. UCL. UCL News. 5 October 2016 . 27 November 2018.
11. Web site: Achilles Therapeutics. Syncona. 27 November 2018.
12. Web site: Pontecorvo Prize for best PhD thesis. 28 October 2015. cancerresearchuk.org. 27 November 2018.
13. Web site: Professor Charles Swanton – The Academy of Medical Sciences. acmedsci.ac.uk. 27 November 2018.
14. Web site: List of Award Winners / Fondazione San Salvatore. eZ. Systems. fondazionesansalvatore.ch. 27 November 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180722041311/http://www.fondazionesansalvatore.ch/index.php?%2Fsite_en%2FList-of-Award-Winners. 22 July 2018. dead.
15. Web site: Translational Cancer Research Prize. 28 October 2015. cancerresearchuk.org. 27 November 2018.
16. Web site: EMBO welcomes 65 new members. Igor. Jukic. Embo.org. 27 November 2018. 27 September 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170927160053/http://embo.org/news/press-releases/2017/embo-welcomes-65-new-members. dead.
17. Web site: Kraft Prize Symposium – Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA. massgeneral.org. 27 November 2018.
18. Web site: Cancer Evolutionist: A Profile of Charles Swanton. Anna. Azvolinsky. 2018. The Scientist.