My laboratory aspires to understand the mechanisms underlying human cancer susceptibility, in order to find innovative ways to intercept cancer early in its evolution. To understand cancer susceptibility, we use inherited mutations in the ‘breast cancer gene’ BRCA2 as a powerful model system. BRCA2 mutation carriers are highly susceptible to cancer. My lab was amongst the first to discover that BRCA2 suppresses cancer by guarding genome integrity, and to establish scientific foundations for the targeted therapy of BRCA-deficient cancers. At CSI, we aim to identify structural and biophysical mechanisms that underlie the functions of BRCA2, to better understand how these functions are perturbed by cancer-causing mutations in BRCA2 and associated factors. To develop innovative therapeutic approaches, my lab has devised powerful new technology platforms to identify and validate therapeutic targets in complex pathways, to modulate enzyme activity outwith the catalytic site via regulatory protein-protein interactions (allo-targeting), and to interrogate cellular signaling pathways using new tools in light microscopy. These technology innovations have led to serial Cambridge University spin-out companies, and close interactions with industry and venture capital. At CSI, we deploy our new technologies to find ways to delay or prevent the evolution of cancers in high-risk individuals in close collaboration with Ashok’s laboratory at A*STAR. Our multi-disciplinary research bridges from bench to bedside, subtending a wide range of techniques from molecular cell biology to single-cell/single-molecule imaging to structural biology, biophysics and chemistry.