Our life-saving research
Progress against the objectives we set last year – 2010/11 Continue planning for theUK Centre forMedical Research
Establish plans for amajor newinitiative to develop
and Innovation (UKCMRI). In June 2010 the founding partners of the UKCMRI (to be known as The Francis Crick Institute) published their scientific vision. Nobel laureate Professor Sir Paul Nurse was appointed as the first Director and Chief Executive and planning permission was secured in December 2010. The coalition government confirmed the Medical Research Council’s share of funding for the new building and work is scheduled to begin on-site in June 2011.
UKCMRI will be one of the largest research institutes in Europe, bringing together 1,250 top scientists and
clinicians from around the world to tackle the major diseases of our time – including cancer, heart
disease, neurodegenerative conditions and infectious diseases.
stratified cancermedicine in theUK. We are progressing well with our plans to develop stratified medicine – where doctors will be able to use information about the genetic make-up of patients’ tumours to choose appropriate treatments. Our aim is to show how to roll out genetic testing in cancer across the NHS. By routinely collecting tumour samples from consenting patients, we will also build a research database of genetic information that will help develop more effective cancer treatments.
The UK government’s Technology Strategy Board has agreed to invest £50 million in research and development linked to stratified medicine across all diseases, including developing genetic tests. Cancer Research UK, working with AstraZeneca and Pfizer, will contribute £5.5 million to a two-year initial phase which aims to prove the feasibility of routinely collecting genetic information from cancer samples taken at our Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres.
Maintain our strong portfolio ofworld-class basic research
Finish setting up a network of Cancer ResearchUKCentres.
Our goal was to launch at least 17 Centres by the end of 2011. We are on track to achieve this with 16 of our Centres already approved and a further two likely to be approved in 2011. NHS Trusts at these Centres are investing an incremental £30 million in cancer research over the next few years, and together with UK universities they have committed nearly £4 million towards essential Centre staff and equipment.
We foster collaboration between the Centres in our network so that researchers can make the most of all the facilities. Our Local Engagement and Development Managers link Centres into the community, organising lab tours for supporters and encouraging researchers to take part in fundraising events. Through working with regional health organisations and businesses, Centres also enable us to reach wider audiences, such as disadvantaged communities and minority ethnic groups, with our prevention and early diagnosis messages.
in order to deepen our understanding of the biology and causes of cancer. The majority of our basic research is undertaken in our five research Institutes or funded in universities through our Biological Sciences Committee. This crucial research helps us to understand how cancer cells survive, grow and spread around the body, and underpins all efforts to develop new cancer treatments.
The majority of research programmes we funded in 2010/11 were rated as ‘Forefront’ by independent panels of expert reviewers – this means they are expected to have an important impact internationally, helping researchers across the world drive forward cancer research. But an increasing number of researchers are coming to us with excellent research proposals that we cannot afford to support.
The Experimental
CancerMedicineCentres are a network of 19 centres across the UK which bring together expertise in
laboratory and clinical research to drive the
development of anti-cancer therapies. This is a joint initiative between Cancer
Research UK and the Health Departments of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
www.ecmcnetwork.org.uk
Over the past year we have funded research using diverse laboratory models such as fruit flies, zebrafish and human cells. However, new and improved models are still essential to fully understand cancer and move faster towards discovering new drugs. Our efforts to increase investment in model systems by applying for European Innovative Medicines Initiative funding have not yet been successful. We are now working to set up new international collaborations to drive progress.
Promote and fund research on cancers that have the
poorest survival rates. Our work to promote research into hard-to-treat cancers gathered momentum this year. Our Cancer Research UK Centres in Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester and University College London are developing focused programmes in lung cancer. A further four Centres, at Barts in London, Oxford, Cambridge and Liverpool, are focusing on pancreatic cancer.
We have joined the International Cancer Genome Consortium, funding an ambitious project that will provide insights into the biology and causes of oesophageal cancer. The project aims to uncover all the genetic faults linked to the most common form of this disease. We also funded a trial of a new non-invasive screening technique, ‘cytosponge’, to detect Barrett’s oesophagus – a condition linked to the increased risk of developing oesophageal cancer.
Annual Report and Accounts / Our life-saving research / 05
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