Karen received her PhD from the University of London and following postdoctoral fellowships at the ICR and NCI, she returned to London to establish a research group at the Ludwig Institute. Returning to the US, she was Chief of the Regulation of Cell Growth Laboratory at the NCI before coming back to the UK to take on the role of Director of the CRUK Beatson Institute in Glasgow. In 2016, she became Chief Scientist at CRUK and moved her research group to the Francis Crick Institute in London.

Karen’s research has focused on the tumour suppressor protein p53. She has made contributions to our understanding of how p53 is regulated and the functions of p53 that contribute to its ability to control cancer progression. She revealed an unexpected ability of p53 to help cells adapt and survive under transient periods of nutrient starvation, work that has led to a more general investigation of cancer cell metabolism. More recently, she has been exploring the role of oxidative stress and serine metabolism in cancer development and progression.

Karen is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences. She is a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association of Cancer Research. Her awards include the Tenovus Gold Medal, the Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins Medal, the Royal Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Mike Price Gold Medal from the EACR, the Clifford Prize for Cancer Research and the Lombroso Award. In 2010 she was appointed a Commander of the British Empire for services to clinical science.