Born in the Midlands, England in 1949, he attended the King Henry VIII grammar school before reading genetics at Cambridge. His PhD studies in the laboratory of Henry Harris in Oxford were followed by postdoctoral work with Sammy Franks at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF; later the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) London Research Institute and now part of the Francis Crick Institute), and Ruth Sager at the Sidney Farber (now Dana–Farber) Cancer Institute in Boston. Prior to the advent of molecular biology, he explored the dominance of the cancer phenotype by cell fusion experiments between transformed and non-transformed cells, and highlighted the existence of both oncogenic and tumour-suppressor genes.
Appreciating his sharp mind, Robin Weiss hired Chris as a team leader at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in 1980. A few months later Alan Hall was recruited as a budding molecular biologist. Uniting Chris and Alan under one roof resulted in an astonishing scientific partnership and a deep friendship that lasted until Alan's unexpected death earlier this year. In a series of ground-breaking papers, they determined that a mutant RAS gene, NRAS, was responsible for transforming sarcoma cell lines; showed how carcinogens mutate RAS genes; and determined the prevalence of these mutations in specific cancers. In these early days of molecular biology, this type of analysis was far from trivial, and their success reflected how Chris and Alan embraced the latest technologies. Through a collaboration with Frank McCormick, Chris's group was amongst the first to perform PCR in the UK — the sound of a robot shifting tubes between water baths was characteristic of his lab at the time. The expertise of Hugh Paterson also ensured that Chris and Alan's groups fully exploited micro-injection and time-lapse microscopy using analogue VHS video recording.
