Novel ways of targeting and destroying cancer cells is the aim of any cancer researcher. Dr Richard Morgan of the Oncology Group at the University of Surrey Postgraduate Medical School has made significant progress during 2009. He has expanded on his original observations and shown that blocking the action of HOX genes in a range of different cancers results in cancer cell death. Work has been rewarded by numerous publications and two grant awards from the Breast Cancer Campaign and the Skin Cancer Research Fund. Furthermore, he has entered into a collaboration with Union Life Sciences focusing on developing a whole group of tablet based treatments also based on blocking HOX genes.