King’s Birthday Honours 2024: Professor Tony Kouzarides is knighted for services to healthcare innovation and delivery

Professor Tony Kouzarides says his knighthood “reinforces the importance of translating basic research into therapies”.

The University of Cambridge professor of cancer biology has been given the honour for his services to healthcare innovation and delivery.

Prof Kouzarides, who is senior group leader at the Gurdon Institute and director and co-founder of the Milner Institute, completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge and postdoctoral work at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology on the cancer-inducing potential of human cytomegalovirus.

He then went to NYU Medical Center in New York where he worked on the c-Fos onco-protein and the characterisation of the leucine zipper. He returned to Cambridge to lead a research group at the Gurdon Institute.

The lab has been studying epigenetic modifications for many years, starting with the identification of the first human enzymes to modify chromatin in 1996.

It is now investigating the functions of mRNA modifications and their connections to cancer. In close collaboration with STORM Therapeutics, the lab is targeting RNA modification pathways with small molecule inhibitors, to develop drugs against cancer.

Prof Kouzarides is a co-founder and ex-director of Abcam plc and a co-founder and current director of STORM Therapeutics.

“I am delighted to receive this honour, which reinforces the importance of translating basic research into therapies by engaging academic researchers with healthcare businesses,” he said.