Cancer Research UK is planning to invest nearly £9m over the next
five years into research at the Cancer Research UK & UCL
Cancer Trials Centre.
UCL Cancer Institute
The announcement is part of a £45 million investment into Cancer
Research UK’s network of clinical trials units across the UK, one
of the charity’s largest investments in clinical research to
date.
Professor Charles Swanton (UCL Cancer Institute and the Francis
Crick Institute), Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said:
“Our clinical research enables us to translate discoveries from
the lab in order to improve cancer diagnostics and treatments,
giving more patients the best chance of beating their disease.”
“This is particularly important for patients with hard to treat
cancers, including pancreatic, oesophageal, lung and brain
tumours, where options for treatment are limited and survival
rates remain poor.”
The £45m will be divided over five years across eight clinical
trials units (CTUs) in Cardiff, Birmingham, Glasgow, Southampton,
Leeds and London (at UCL, the Institute of Cancer Research, and
Queen Mary University of London).
One of the studies benefiting from the funding is TRACERx, led by
Professor Swanton and Dr Mariam Jamal-Hanjani (UCL Cancer
Institute), which aims to transform our understanding of
non-small cell lung cancer and take a practical step towards
precision medicine.
The first findings of TRACERx were published last year, and found
that unstable chromosomes within lung tumours increase the risk
of cancer returning after surgery, and the researchers used the
findings to detect relapse long before standard testing.*
The TRACERx research team, which involves the collaboration of
more than 225 researchers and clinicians, is seeking to uncover
mechanisms of cancer evolution by analysing the intratumour
heterogeneity in lung tumours from approximately 850 patients and
tracking its evolutionary trajectory from diagnosis through to
relapse.
Cancer Research UK’s CTUs bring together world leading
researchers and clinicians to find life-saving new treatments and
tests for cancer patients, specialising in the design, delivery
and analysis of trials that bring the latest scientific
developments to patients all over the UK. Clinical trials are the
only way to find out if a new treatment is safe to use, and if
it’s better than existing treatments. Each year, around 25,000
people take part in a clinical trial that’s supported by Cancer
Research UK.
Cancer Research UK’s CTUs are a vital part of the charity’s
research network, helping shape the clinical research landscape
in the UK and internationally. Each of the charity’s CTUs has a
different specialist focus including children’s cancer trials,
cancer screening, and population research.
The CTC at UCL is a research department within the UCL Cancer
Institute and closely associated with the CRUK Centre at UCL.
Over the last 15 years the CTC has grown to be one of the largest
cancer trials centres in the UK. Trials at the CTC cover a range
of areas, most of which are based on evaluating chemotherapy,
radiotherapy or surgery. Tumour types covered include, brain
cancer, gastrointestinal, gynaecological cancer, head & neck
cancer, leukaemia, lung cancer, lymphomas and myeloma.
Professor Jonathan Ledermann, Director of the CRUK and UCL Cancer
Trials Centre said: “This award allows us to continue building
our programme of clinical trials in cancer. This CRUK
infrastructure award helps us leverage funding for trials in a
wide range of cancers that includes translating research from the
laboratory, multi-centre national and international trials and
observational studies to improve the treatment of patients with
cancer. With support from Cancer Research UK, we have led over
100 trials in the last five years, some of which have changed
clinical practice and increased our knowledge of cancer genomics,
particularly in lung cancers.”
