Dr David Adams

Interim Head of the Somatic Genomics Programme and Senior Group Leader

Dave Adams leads the Somatic Genomics programme at Sanger, deploying functional genomics, saturation genome editing and duplex sequencing to systematically decode the mutational landscape driving cancer and other diseases — with a particular focus on dissecting driver versus passenger variants in skin cancer somatic genomes.

Expertise

David’s expertise spans high-throughput functional genetic screens, cancer genetics, and computational biology, with a particular focus on how somatic mutations drive tumour and disease development.

Research Focus

David’s research is currently focused in several areas:

• Somatic genomic landscapes — decoding the mutational processes, driver mutations, and clonal dynamics shaping cancer genomes across tumour types, including how germline context influences somatic mutation burden and how driver variants are selected for, or against, during tumour evolution. These studies have extended into non-cancer conditions such as telomere disorders.
• Skin cancer genomics — leading the Dermatlas project, sequencing the genomes of rare and common skin cancers to define driver mutations, mutational signatures, and somatic landscapes across diverse ancestries and tumour types.
• Cancer genomics in LMICs — expanding genomic studies of cancer to Latin America and other underrepresented populations, including large-scale somatic profiling of acral melanoma and other tumour types that disproportionately affect non-European ancestries, where the biology is poorly understood and the clinical need is greatest.
• Saturation genome editing at scale — systematically mapping the functional consequences of somatic and germline variants in cancer and other genes to distinguish pathogenic mutations from passengers, with direct clinical utility for variant classification.

David’s career

Dave Adams is a Senior Group Leader and Interim Head of the Somatic Genomics Programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where his lab combines large-scale genomic analysis, functional genomics, saturation genome editing, and CRISPR-based screening to decode the somatic mutations driving cancer and other diseases. His group has made foundational contributions across several areas: mapping the mutational processes, driver mutations, and clonal dynamics shaping cancer genomes — including how germline context influences somatic mutation burden and how driver variants are selected for or against during tumour evolution. He leads the Dermatlas project to systematically sequence the genomes of rare and common skin cancers across diverse ancestries. He is also a strong advocate for expanding cancer genomic studies into underrepresented populations, particularly in Latin America, where his UKRI/MRC- and Royal Society-funded work includes large-scale somatic profiling of acral melanoma — a tumour type that disproportionately affects non-European ancestries and remains poorly understood.

He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal College of Pathologists and a co-founder of the Atlas of Variant Effects Alliance. Beyond the science, he co-leads the Sanger Excellence Fellowships for Black British postdoctoral scientists — a programme that has become a blueprint for EDI initiatives across the sector. Outside of work he runs half marathons, drinks an unreasonable amount of coffee, and remains, by his own admission, a failed vegetarian.

Achievements

Additional achievements:

David has mentored 50+ researchers and graduated over a dozen PhD students—many now leading labs, directing institutes, or shaping industry and clinical practice.

My timeline

• Interim Head of the Somatic Genomics Programme

• D.Sc University of Sydney

• Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath), UK. 

• Goudie Medal and Lecture (Pathological Society)

• Fellow of the Academy of Medicine Sciences (F.Med.Sci), UK.

• Senior Group Leader

• Cancer Research UK Senior Fellow

• Group Leader

• Cancer Research UK Career Development Fellow

• Joined the Sanger Institute as a postdoc

• PhD University of Sydney

• B.Sc (Hons) University of Technology, Sydney