Mike Stratton trained in medicine specialising in histopathology. His primary research interests have been in the genetics and genomics of cancer. He mapped and identified the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2, discovered BRAF mutations in malignant melanoma and described the mutational signatures of DNA damage and repair processes in cancer genomes.

He is Director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2013.

Allan Balmain was born in Wick, Scotland, studied Organic Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, and carried out post-doctoral work France and Germany. He subsequently worked in the University of Glasgow and Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, before moving to the United States in 1997. Balmain established a molecular link between chemical carcinogen exposure and initiation of tumour development in 1983, and showed that the types of mutations found in oncogenes depend on the causative chemical agent. A major focus has been the links between genetic and environmental factors and how they interact to cause cancer susceptibility.

Ludmil Alexandrov is an Assistant Professor at University of California San Diego, where his research focuses on understanding mutational processes in human cancer and human ageing through the use of mutational signatures.

Ludmil was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, studied computer science at Neumont University, and completed his graduate work with Prof Sir Mike Stratton at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. During his PhD, Ludmil developed the first comprehensive map of the mutational signatures in human cancer. He also held a distinguished Oppenheimer Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Ludmil’s role in the Grand Challenge will be the development of novel computational approaches for understanding and explaining cancer risk through mutational signatures.

Paul Brennan runs the Genetics Section at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon. The primary aim of the Genetics Section is to use genetics and genomics techniques to (i) understand the causes of cancer, and (ii) identify ways to detect and treat cancers at earlier stages. 

In the Mutograph Grand Challenge he will coordinate the large international effort of recruiting approximately 5000 cancers across 5 continents for 5 different cancers types. 

Dr Peter Campbell is Head of Cancer Genetics and Genomics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, having started a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellowship in 2010. He completed specialist training in Haematology in New Zealand and Australia in 2002. Following this, he completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the molecular pathogenesis of myeloproliferative disorders. Since 2007, Dr Campbell has been employed at the Cancer Genome Project, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

His major interest is cancer genomics, and in particular genome-wide analyses of somatic mutations in tumours. The four major areas of interest have been: the discovery of new cancer genes; the identification of somatic mutation processes operative in tumours; the characterisation of patterns of cancer evolution and the translation of these fundamental insights about cancer biology into better management of patients.

David H. Phillips is Professor of Environmental Carcinogenesis at King’s College London, where he leads a research team investigating the properties and mechanism of action of agents known or suspected to cause cancer.

His role in the Grand Challenge will be to expose human tissue organoids in culture to different agents in order to generate mutational signatures, which will then be compared with the signatures in human tumours and carcinogen-induced animal tumours, shedding new light on the aetiology of human cancer.

Mimi McCord founded the charity now known as Heartburn Cancer UK following the death of  her husband in 2002. He died aged 47, nine weeks after being diagnosed with oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Mimi is now a lay member of NICE and BSG guideline groups  focusing on Barrett’s oesophagus and OAC, to improve diagnosis, treatment and management. Additionally she sits on an expert panel advising the DH on a public oesophago-gastric cancer awareness campaign.

Mimi works determinedly to raise awareness of the link, and risk factors, between heartburn, Barrett’s and OAC within the public domain and medical profession.

Maggie Blanks was a carer for her husband Alan when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 55 in 2002. After his death in 2003, and having discovered how little research was then being done into pancreatic cancer, she set up the charity Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund (PCRF) to raise new money for research. Since its start, PCRF has funded £7m of research and promoted the need for more research by the major funders.