Professor Sir Mike Stratton, FMedSci FRS

Senior Group Leader

Mike's primary research interests are the discovery of genes with inherited mutations in the germline that cause cancer susceptibility, the discovery of somatically mutated genes in cancer that may provide targets for new drug discovery, and understanding the mutational processes and mutational signatures present in normal and cancer cells.

Mike established the genomic location of the high risk breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2 on chromosome 13 in 1994 and then identified the gene itself in 1995, subsequently discovering multiple other inherited cancer susceptibility genes. In 2000 he established the Cancer Genome Project at the Sanger Institute to systematically sequence cancer genomes for somatic mutations in order to improve diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the disease. This identified cancer “driver” mutations in the BRAF gene in malignant melanoma, leading to the development of BRAF targeted therapies for melanoma, and several other somatically mutated cancer genes in a range of cancer types.

He sequenced the first complete cancer genome and developed the conceptual and computational framework for cataloguing and understanding the mutational processes and mutational signatures contributing to the mutations in cancer genomes.

Together with colleagues he currently explores the somatic mutation patterns of normal cell genomes across tissues of the human body and uses somatic mutations in normal cell and cancer genomes from countries around the world to explore the existence of currently uncharacterised population exposures that may lead to cancer.

Mike Stratton was Director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute from 2010-2023. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2013.

My timeline

• The 2016 Mike Price Gold Medal Award, European Association of Cancer Research

• The ESHG Award, European Society of Human Genetics

• Fellow of the AACR Academy

• The AACR Distinguished Lecturer in Breast Cancer Research Award

• The Ernst W Bertner Award, MD Anderson Cancer Centre

• The Sergio Lombroso Award in Cancer Research, Weizmann Institute

• The GHA Clowes Award, American Association of Cancer Research, USA

• The Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine

• Knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours List

• Appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Wellcome Genome Campus.

• Estella Medrano Memorial Lecture Award, Society for Melanoma Research

• Royal Physiographical Society Medal, Lund, Sweden

• The Massachusetts General Hospital Award in Cancer Research

• The Lila Gruber Award for Cancer Research, American Academy of Dermatology

• Appointed as the Director of the Sanger Institute

• Member of EMBO

• The C. Chester Stock Award, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre

• Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation

• Fellow of the Royal Society

• The BioMedicum Helsinki Medal, Finland

• The AstraZeneca Award, Biochemical Society

• Appointed as Deputy Director of the Sanger Institute

• The Lennox K Black Award for Excellence in Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University

• The Tom Connors Award, British Association of Cancer Research

• Member of the Sanger Institute's Board of Management

• Initiated the Cancer Genome Project and became the Head of this Programme

• Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences

• Appointed as Professor of Cancer Genetics and Chair of the newly constitute section of Cancer Genetics at the Institute of Cancer Research

• Reader in the Molecular Genetics of Cancer, Institute of Cancer Research

• Honorary Consultant, Royal Marsden Hospital

• Obtained the MRCPath and qualified as a Consultant Pathologist - Hammersmith and Maudsley Hospital

• Team Leader in Molecular Carcinogenesis at the Institute of Cancer Research

• Senior Registrar, Department of Neuropathology, Institute of Psychiatry

• Conducted research for a PhD on the molecular biology of cancer at the Institute Cancer Research

• MRC Training Fellow, Institute of Cancer Research and Institute of Psychiatry

• Trained as a histopathologist

• Senior House Office - Pathology - Westminster Hospital

• Research Fellow, Institute of Psychiatry

• House Physician at Beckenham Hospital

• House Surgeon at Guys Hospital

• Qualified in medicine at Oxford