Charles Swanton
Leads TRACERx, the study that follows lung cancers as they evolve, and showed how air pollution can trigger lung cancer without new mutations.
Charles Swanton's TRACERx programme sequenced hundreds of lung cancers over time to map clonal evolution, ctDNA dynamics, and metastasis. His 2023 work showed PM2.5 pollution promotes lung cancer via inflammation acting on pre-existing mutations.
| Title | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| The evolution of non-small cell lung cancer metastases in TRACERx | Nature | 2023 |
| Lung adenocarcinoma promotion by air pollutants | Nature | 2023 |
Relapse after surgery is driven by particular subclones that can be identified in the primary tumour and tracked in blood, which argues for evolution-aware adjuvant strategies. The pollution finding reframes carcinogenesis: some agents promote already-mutant cells rather than causing mutations.
Lung cancers keep evolving after they form, and it is ongoing chromosomal instability rather than the number of mutations that best predicts who will relapse. This gives a rationale for targeting the earliest (clonal) drivers and neoantigens and for tracking evolution in blood after surgery.
A single biopsy is an incomplete picture of a patient's cancer. Truncal mutations shared by all cells (in kidney cancer, VHL) are the most reliable drug targets, whereas mutations in only some branches predict resistance. This is why liquid biopsy and multi-region sampling matter.
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not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaBank three spatially separate tumour blocks from every resection
Shares The Francis Crick Institute, Whole-exome & whole-genome sequencing, Cancer Research UK, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
- InstitutionBarts Cancer Institute / Barts Health NHS Trust
Shares University College London Hospitals / UCL Cancer Institute, The Francis Crick Institute, Cancer Research UK, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
- IdeaA clone report from blood at every treatment cycle
Shares Gerlinger: a single biopsy misses most of the mutations in a kidney tumour, Circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), Liquid biopsy (ctDNA), Non-small-cell lung cancer.
- PathwayChromosomal instability & aneuploidy
Shares TRACERx 421: the full-cohort picture of how lung cancer evolves and which subclones drive relapse, TRACERx first 100: tracking how lung cancers evolve, and how chromosomal chaos predicts relapse, The Francis Crick Institute, Whole-exome & whole-genome sequencing.
- InstitutionCancer Research UK Manchester Institute
Shares The Francis Crick Institute, Circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), Cancer Research UK, Liquid biopsy (ctDNA).
- PathwayClonal evolution & minimal residual disease
Shares Gerlinger: a single biopsy misses most of the mutations in a kidney tumour, TRACERx 421: the full-cohort picture of how lung cancer evolves and which subclones drive relapse, TRACERx first 100: tracking how lung cancers evolve, and how chromosomal chaos predicts relapse, The Francis Crick Institute.
- IdeaEvaluate clean-air policies using lung cancer in never-smokers
Shares TRACERx 421: the full-cohort picture of how lung cancer evolves and which subclones drive relapse, The Francis Crick Institute, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
- IdeaPool every multi-sample tumour genome into one open evolution atlas
Shares The Francis Crick Institute, Whole-exome & whole-genome sequencing, Cancer Research UK.