Karen Vousden

After attending Gravesend Grammar School for Girls,[citation needed] Vousden gained a Bachelor of Science degree in genetics and microbiology (1978) and a PhD from Queen Mary College, University of London on the use of suppressor gene mutations to study transfer RNA redundancy in the fungus Coprinus.

[8][14] In 1995, she joined the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, USA,[14] serving successively as head of the Molecular Carcinogenesis section of the ABL-Basic Research Program (1995–97), director of the Molecular Virology and Carcinogenesis Laboratory (1997–98), interim director of the ABL-Basic Research Program (1998–99) and chief of the Regulation of Cell Growth Laboratory, Division of Basic Sciences (1999–2002).

Since 2016, she has moved back to London to take up the role of CRUK Chief Scientist and Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute.

[20] Vousden's recent research has centred on p53,[21] a gene which plays a critical role in preventing the development of tumours by inducing cells subject to stress, such as DNA damage, to commit suicide via the apoptosis mechanism.

With Allan Weissman and others, she showed that Mdm2 is a ubiquitin ligase which targets p53 for degradation by the proteasome, thus ensuring levels of the protein remain low when the cell is not under stress.

Vousden's group have recently discovered a novel p53-regulated protein, TIGAR (T-p53 Inducible Glycolysis and Apoptosis Regulator), which can reduce oxidative stress in cells and might mediate part of this effect of p53.