Career Building Series: ‘How to build a Research Group’

Speaker: Dr Graeme Hewitt, King’s College London
Date: Wednesday 8^th July 2026 at 9.30am with tea, coffee and light breakfast.
Location: Large Seminar Room, Innovation Hub, Guy’s Cancer Centre, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 1UL
Registration: Click Here to register by 30^th June 2026

Dr Kelly Sheehan-rooney will also be available if anyone would like to query about fellowships applications and other career opportunities.

Optional tour available of the Guys Campus. (15min)

Biography: Dr Graeme Hewitt is a CRUK RadNet Junior Group Leader in the Comprehensive Cancer Centre at King’s College London, where his research focuses on DNA damage response mechanisms and their application in cancer therapy and radiotherapy sensitisation. His work combines functional genomics, proteomics and advanced cell biology approaches to identify new therapeutic vulnerabilities in cancer.

Graeme completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science at Newcastle University before undertaking a PhD in the biology of ageing, awarded in 2016. His doctoral research investigated the interplay between autophagy and DNA double-strand break repair, for which he received the Newcastle University Medical Sciences Doctoral Thesis Prize.

Following his PhD, he carried out postdoctoral research at The Francis Crick Institute in the laboratory of Simon Boulton, where he studied DNA damage response pathways and chromatin remodelling in cancer. During this time, he was also seconded to Artios Pharma in Cambridge, contributing to the development of high-throughput screening assays for novel DNA damage response targets.

Since establishing his independent research group at King’s College London in 2021, Graeme has built a growing and collaborative team focused on understanding how cancer cells respond to DNA damage and radiation therapy. His group now consists of six PhD students and a research technician. He maintains strong collaborations with industry partners including ARTBIO, AstraZeneca and Artios Pharma, helping to translate discoveries in DNA damage response biology into new therapeutic strategies. Dr Hewitt is also embedded within the Cancer Research UK City of London Research Centre, where he serves as a member of the discovery training team as well as maintaining research collaborations across the network spanning functional genetics, radiation biology and assay development.