Professor Jones' laboratory focuses on high grade gliomas in children, a heterogeneous collection of brain tumours with a median survival of 9-15 months, and for which there are currently no effective therapies. Chris and others have identified unique genetic drivers of these tumours, not present in histologically similar lesions occurring in adults, which illustrate previously unappreciated connections between chromatin regulation, developmental signalling and cancer. Distinct anatomical distributions of childhood tumours marked by these specific mutations points at important differences in the varying selective pressures between regions of the developing brain.

The goals of their work are to better understand the function of these genetic alterations in the context of paediatric gliomagenesis and to use this mechanistic insight to develop novel therapies for children with these tumours.

Professor Jones is Head of Division of Cancer Biology at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, where he also leads the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence and the Centre for Childhood Cancer. He is currently Preclinical Chair of the international CONNECT consortium, and Steering Committee Member of ITCC-Brain.