Charles completed his MDPhD in 1999 at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories and Cancer Research UK clinician scientist/medical oncology training in 2008. Charles combines his laboratory research at the Francis Crick Institute with clinical duties focussed on biological mechanisms of cancer drug resistance. Charles is the Chief Investigator of the CR-UK TRACERx lung cancer evolution study and co-directs the CRUK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence. He was awarded the Royal College of Physicians Goulstonian lecture and Graham Bull Prize for Clinical Sciences in 2013 and appointed Fellow of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences in 2013 and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015. Charles was awarded the Jeremy Jass Prize (2014), Stand up to Cancer Translational Cancer Research Prize (2015), Glaxo Smithkline Biochemical Society Prize in recognition of distinguished research leading to new advances in medical science and was awarded the Ellison-Cliffe Medal and Lecture, Royal Society of Medicine (2017) and the San Salvatore Prize for Cancer Research (2017). Charles was appointed Napier Professor in Cancer by the Royal Society in 2016.