Owen was appointed Director of the CRUK Beatson Institute in August 2017, having been Deputy Director since 2011 and then Interim Director from 2016. The focus of his research is to understand the function of driver oncogene and tumor suppressor mutations in epithelial cancers. He has a particular interest in colorectal cancer and WNT signaling, pancreatic cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Owen has published over 250 papers and been instrumental in the use of in vivo models to determine the molecular hallmarks of epithelial cancers and for translating therapeutic concepts prior to clinical trials.

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Owen’s contribution to this Grand Challenge project on tissue specificity will be to cross-compare different oncogenic drivers in different tissues that either do or do not undergo a transformation.