Professor Melvyn Greaves trained in zoology and immunology at University College London and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm before focusing his research on cancer and leukaemia in the mid-1970s. He introduced novel antibody/flow cytometry-based methods for the biological classification of leukaemias that led to insights into the cellular origins of disease and more specific allocation of treatment. His work on the molecular genetics of childhood leukaemia uncovered the prenatal origin of this disease and shed light on its possible infectious causes.

His current research is focused on stem cells, genetic architecture and clonal evolution in leukaemia and on the evolutionary biology of cancer. This research has been recognised by many awards, including the 2001 EHA–José Carreras Award, the British Society for Haematology Gold Medal and the 1988 King Faisal International Prize for Medicine. He is the author of the popular science book, Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy (2000). In 2013, he established the Centre for Evolution and Cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, the first of its kind worldwide.