Adams currently shares (with Andreas Strasser) the position of Joint-Head of the Molecular Genetics of Cancer Division at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne (Australia).
Their research, following that by Susumu Tonegawa, also led to the discovery that antibody genes encode as bits and pieces, that can recombine in a myriad of ways to help fight infection; they also confirmed earlier work by Shen-Ong & Cole, Leder, Hood, Croce, and Hayward that genetic mutation leads to Burkitt's lymphoma, a malignancy of antibody-producing cells, called "B lymphocytes".
After completing his PhD at the Harvard University, Adams was awarded the Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship to pursue post-doctoral training.
He spent a year working under Professor James Watson at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, during which he met Suzanne Cory, and started their long-term collaboration.
Adams and Cory subsequently moved to Australia, and began working at WEHI where they established the institute's first molecular genetics laboratory.