Tributes paid to Professor Greg Hannon 1964-2026

Tributes have been paid to Professor of Molecular Cancer Biology Greg Hannon (1964-2026), who died on 4 April 2026.

Greg Hannon FRS, FMedSci, moved from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2014 to take up a position as Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. He joined Trinity College in 2016, as a Senior Research Fellow.

During his eight years as Institute Director he increased faculty appointments, strengthened partnerships and secured £173 million for the organisation’s future.

Trinity Fellow Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, said:

Greg was one of the most creative thinkers I have known. His transformative contributions to RNA biology and cancer biology arose from his bold and rigorous approach to scientific research. He also pioneered innovative technologies that widely benefit researchers in academia and industry.  A truly remarkable scientist whose impact on science will be felt for many years to come.

Trinity Fellow Patrick Maxwell, Regius Professor of Physic and Head of the School of Clinical Medicine at Cambridge, said:

Greg was an impressive and very creative scientist. Over his career he made important contributions to understanding cancer and RNA biology. Under Greg’s leadership, the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute went from strength to strength and he will be greatly missed.

Awarded a £20 million Cancer Grand Challenge Award in 2017, Professor Hannon brought together an international team, with expertise in astronomy, virtual reality, statistics, medicine and molecular biology, to gather myriads of bits of information about every cell in a breast cancer tumour in order to create a 3D image of it.

By studying this model in virtual reality, scientists and doctors can develop new ways to diagnose and treat cancer. Following on from this research, Professor Hannon founded the Spatial Profiling and Annotation Centre of Excellence.

This year, The Hannon Group joined the Global Cancer Grand Challenges ILLUMINE team, led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute, to investigate dark proteome – a group of poorly understood, unusual proteins that might be linked to certain cancers.

Professor Hannon combined world‑leading research with an entrepreneurial spirit, founding spin‑out companies and collaborating with industry to help improve outcomes for patients. He guided the Functional Genomics Centre, a collaboration between Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca.

Colleagues at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute paid tribute to Greg Hannon’s visionary and inspirational leadership. Professor Jason Carroll said:

Greg believed that the greatest breakthroughs did not come from equipment or funding, but from the strength of community. He had a gift for making everyone, from PhD students to senior faculty, feel welcomed and heard.

He was a natural leader and had the ability to consistently inspire those around him, always wanting to tackle the biggest biological problems, usually in innovative and exciting ways. Greg Hannon made us better scientists, but more importantly, his leadership and vision made us better people. His lasting legacy will be his commitment to an open, collaborative culture, and we will miss him enormously.

Greg Hannon was elected to the Royal Society in 2018, the European Academy of Cancer Sciences in 2019, and the American Association of Cancer Research Academy in 2020.

Photo above courtesy of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.