Dr Graeme Hewitt

Graeme Hewitt is a Cancer Research UK RadNet Junior Group Leader at King's College London's Comprehensive Cancer Centre. Graeme received his PhD in 2016 and was awarded the Newcastle University Medical Sciences Doctoral Thesis Prize for his work investigating the interplay between the protein degradation pathway autophagy and DNA double strand break (DSB) repair. Graeme then completed postdoctoral research at the Francis Crick Institute in London, UK in the lab of Simon Boulton. During this time, Graeme was seconded to Artios pharma, Cambridge, UK where he developed cell-based target engagement, and high-throughput cell-based assays for compound screening for novel DDR targets. Graeme is an expert in DDR mechanisms and their application in cancer treatment. His research has uncovered detailed regulatory and engagement mechanisms of the oncogenic chromatin remodeler ALC1/CHD1L. Furthermore, Graeme identified ALC1 as a possible therapeutic target in ATM- and HRD-deficient cancers. In 2021, Graeme was awarded a CRUK RadNet fellowship to begin an independent research programme to investigate targeting the DDR in conjunction with radiotherapy. The Hewitt lab uses whole genome CRISPR screens, proteomics and a wide range of cell-based assays to identify and characterise novel genetic dependencies.