UCL medical sciences researcher awarded prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

Dr Deborah Caswell (UCL Division of Medicine) has been awarded a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, providing significant support for her ongoing research into the early molecular mechanisms driving lung cancer.

The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships scheme is designed to foster the next generation of research leaders, offering long-term funding to early-career researchers and innovators with outstanding potential. Dr Caswell is among a select group of UCL academics recognised in this latest round, which saw over £7 million awarded to UCL researchers to lead vital projects, collaborate with innovators, and develop their careers as future leaders in research and innovation.

Dr Caswell said: “A key focus of my laboratory is the APOBEC3 (A3) family of genes. These antiviral enzymes normally protect us by mutating viral RNA and DNA. However, they can also damage our own genome. This APOBEC3 driven damage is detectable in more than 70% of human cancers. Intriguingly, inherited APOBEC3 variants—such as the A3A/B mutation, common in East Asian, Native American, and Oceanic populations but rare in Europeans and Africans—may increase lung cancer risk by making these enzymes more active and stable.

“The precise ways in which APOBEC3 activity affects lung cancer initiation remain unknown. With the support of this Future Leaders Fellowship, my lab will define how antiviral immune responses driven by APOBEC3 contribute to lung cancer initiation and progression. Our work will generate clinically relevant insights into the earliest steps of disease, paving the way for novel strategies to prevent cancer and reduce mortality worldwide.”

She added: “I am deeply honoured to receive a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. Most importantly, this fellowship makes possible research that I believe will bring us closer to preventing lung cancer and ultimately saving lives.”