Tony Kouzarides

Professor Sir Tony Kouzarides, PhD, FMedSci, FRS

Tony Kouzarides is Professor of Cambridge Biology at the University of Cambridge and a Senior Group Leader at the Gurdon Institute. Tony is also the director and co-founder of the Milner Therapeutics Institute at the University of Cambridge.

Tony did his bachelors’ degree at Leeds University and his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He then did postdoctoral work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and at New York University Medical Centre. He returned to the UK to set up his own lab at the Gurdon Institute.

The Kouzarides lab has been studying epigenetic modifications for many years, starting with the identification of the first human enzymes to modify chromatin in 1996. His lab has identified and characterised many chromatin modification pathways and showed their involvement in cancer. The lab is now investigating the functions of mRNA modifications and their connections to cancer. In close collaboration with STORM Therapeutics, the Kouzarides lab is targeting RNA modification pathways with small molecule inhibitors, to develop drugs against cancer.

In the 22-year period of 1996-2017, Tony was listed in the top ten most cited scientist at the University of Cambridge (in any field), as shown in the curated publication database of 100,000 top scientists world-wide (Ioannidis J et al, Plos Biology, 2019).

Tony is a co-founder and director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute, whose mission is to deliver better therapies through collaborations with industry. He is founder and director of Cambridge Gravity, an organization for the promotion of science at the University of Cambridge. He is founder and patron of a cancer charity in Spain called Conquer Cancer (Vencer el Cancer). He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute of Cancer Research (UK) and on the Executive Board of the Cambridge Cancer Centre.

Tony is a co-founder and ex-director of Abcam plc, a publicly trading research reagents company in Cambridge, a co-founder and ex-director of Chroma Therapeutics, of a drug discovery company based in Oxford and a co-founder and current director of STORM Therapeutics, a drug discovery company based in Cambridge.

He has been elected member of the European Molecular Laboratory Organisation (EMBO), fellow of the British Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) and fellow of the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts.

He has been awarded the Bodossaki Foundation prize in Biology, the Wellcome Trust Award for Research in Biochemistry Related to Medicine, the Tenovus Medal, the Bijvoet Medal, the Biochemical Society Novartis Medal and Prize, the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the Cyprus Excellence in Science Award and the Nemitsas Prize.

Tony was knighted in the 2024 King’s Birthday Honours for “services to healthcare innovation and delivery”.