Following Postdoctoral research positions at Birkbeck College and the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey, he returned to UCL as Lecturer in Biochemistry in 1989, becoming Reader and then Professor of Structural Biology in 1996. In 1999 he rejoined the Institute of Cancer Research to chair the new Section of Structural Biology at the Chester Beatty Laboratories in Chelsea. In 2009 he was appointed Head of the new School of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex, relocating his laboratory to the MRC Genome Damage and Stability Centre, where he holds the position of Professor of Structural Biology. In 2017 he announced that he would be standing down as Head of the School of Life Sciences at Sussex. From 1 October he took up a joint appointment as Head of the Division of Structural Biology at the Institute of Cancer Research while continuing as Professor of Structural Biology in the Genome Damage and Stability Centre at the University of Sussex.
Research and enterprise
His research focuses on understanding the structural basis for assembly, specificity and regulation of proteins and complexes involved in human diseases such as HIV/AIDS and cancer. He is particularly noted for his early work on the HIV-1 protease, proteins involved in DNA repair such as uracil-DNA glycosylase and DNA-PKcs and the Hsp90molecular chaperone system. Although focussed on understanding basic mechanisms, his laboratory is committed to translating this understanding to the discovery of new drugs for patient benefit. He is a founder and CSO of Domainex Ltd, an innovative biotech company that won the 2010 Life Sciences and Enterprise Programme of The Year Award, and the "Innovation in Enabling Biotechnology" Prize at 2007 UKTI Bioentrepreneurial Company of the Year Awards. On arrival at Sussex he undertook the restructuring of the School of Life Sciences which resulted in nearly one third of the faculty accepting early retirement or leaving the University, and rationalised the degree programs, stopping a number of poorly-recruiting Masters programmes. Sussex now ranks 8th in the UK in Biosciences in the 2012 Guardian University Guide, and Chemistry, which had been threatened with closure in 2006, has been revitalised with the appointment of new Faculty in Organic and Synthetic Chemistry, and with the launch of a University-funded initiative in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery. Sussex ranked 10th overall in the UK for Biological Sciences, and 8th for research outputs in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, placing it on par with Cambridge and ahead of the majority of Russell Group Universities.
