Simon Boulton is a Principal Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. His research is focused on understanding the mechanisms that maintain genome integrity and how defects in these processes impact human health. Simon's work has helped shape our understanding of the regulation and execution of homologous recombination, a key DNA repair pathway frequently inactivated in cancer. He has discovered novel DNA repair factors linked to human disease, defined the molecular basis through which these factors act, and has uncovered mechanisms by which telomeres protect and maintain chromosomes ends.

Simon is Co-founder and VP Science Strategy at Artios Pharma Ltd., a biotech company that is developing DNA repair inhibitors to selectively kill cancer cells. He is also Director, RadNet - City of London, a Cancer Research UK initiative to improve radiation treatments for cancer patients. Simon is an EMBO Member, Fellow of the Academic of Medical Sciences and is the recipient of the Royal Society Francis Crick Medal and Lecture, the EMBO Gold Medal and the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research.