Cancer Grand Challenges

📣 BREAKING NEWS 📣 We're thrilled to announce five new global teams who have been selected to receive up to $25m each over five years to tackle some of cancer's toughest challenges: ▶️ Cancer inequities ▶️ Early-onset cancers ▶️ Solid tumours in children ▶️ T-cell receptors Meet the teams: https://bit.ly/3ugAbny Cancer Research UK (CRUK) National Cancer Institute (NCI) Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK Institut national du cancer The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Stichting Kinderen Kankervrij (KiKa)

🌟 CANCER GRAND CHALLENGES IS HIRING 🌟 We're looking for a Research Portfolio Manager to join our team! This role is an incredible opportunity to work at the forefront of cancer research on a global scale, and involves: ✅ Acting as a key scientific and strategic interface with our external research community — including leading scientists, academics and patient advocates ✅ Working with our Head of Research and Director to develop, shape and implement Cancer Grand Challenges' research strategy, as well as scientific development of key events ✅ Identifying scientific, collaborative and communications opportunities to develop ways to better progress and promote our work We're looking for someone with a strong scientific background (including expertise in cancer biology), who understands the current research landscape, is skilled at nurturing strong and collaborative relationships and has experience planning and delivering strategic projects. Learn more and apply today ➡ https://bit.ly/3WeoQQa

Congratulations to Black in Cancer and Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research who put on the excellent 2024 Black in Cancer conference over two days last week, inspiring 200+ oncologists, cancer researchers, students, patient advocates and funders to get out of their comfort zones to enact change.   A prominent theme across the conference was the need to improve the diversity of clinical trials through patient and public involvement and further investigate the biological and social factors contributing to the higher mortality rate in Black cancer patients. We must continue to foster and engage with communities to improve both the quality of our research and health outcomes in the Black community.   A highlight of the event was the keynote address from Melissa Boneta Davis, lead of Cancer Grand Challenges team SAMBAI who are doing some pioneering work utilising quantified ancestry to unravel genetic vs. environmental influences in tumour biology among race/ethnic groups, including epigenetic cell signalling and immunological responses in the tumour microenvironment and systemic immune regulation.   It was fantastic to also see the great #CRUKFunded research presented by PhD students Adesewa Adebisi (Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute) Joanne Oke (Manchester Cancer Research Centre) and Sarah Williams (Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute) and our travel bursary recipients.   See more updates from the conference using #BiCconf24

It's currently #MyelomaAwarenessWeek. We recently spoke to Claire James, a member of the #CancerGrandChallenges Advocacy Panel, about her lived experience with myeloma and her role on the panel. Claire was unexpectedly diagnosed with #myeloma in 2014 and breast cancer in 2015. She began her journey in patient advocacy and public health soon after, so she could use her experience in a positive way. With a strong belief that high quality research is essential for improving health and wellbeing, Claire helps the Cancer Grand Challenges teams to ensure that they integrate effective patient advocacy in their work. Thank you, Claire, for lending your experience to the panel and ensuring our research continues to put patients at the centre.

New review in The Lancet 📣 Professor Jelle Wesseling (The Netherlands Cancer Institute, team lead of #CancerGrandChallenges team PRECISION) came together with leading experts Suzette Delaloge, Professor Seema Ahsan Khan and Professor Timothy Whelan in this recent review on Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). They discuss how the field is moving away from considering DCIS as a precursor to invasive breast cancer, and finding the crucial balance between its over and undertreatment. Read more 👇

What is the present view on how to manage the potential breast cancer precursor DCIS, and why should we care? To answer these questions, group leader Jelle Wesseling has joined forces with experts from the USA, France, and Canada for a comprehensive review of the available knowledge, current clinical practice, and ongoing developments. They published their conclusions in the prestigious journal The Lancet. “This review makes it very clear that a substantial paradigm shift is ongoing towards de-escalation of DCIS treatment. For decades, Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) has been regarded as early breast cancer and therefore treated with surgery, often followed by radiotherapy. However, it has been known for a while that three out of four DCIS lesions never progress into invasive breast cancer. In line with current guidelines, almost all women with DCIS still undergo conventional aggressive treatment, as it is challenging to distinguish between the indolent, low-risk DCIS lesions from potentially progressive high-risk ones. The Cancer Grand Challenges PRECISION consortium was the first international research team funded jointly by KWF Kankerbestrijding Dutch Cancer Society and Cancer Research UK (CRUK) UK to identify harmless from potentially hazardous Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). In the last seven years, the consortium, led by group leader Jelle Wesseling, has made impressive progress that also revolutionized the view on how women with DCIS as well as their health care providers frame a DCIS diagnosis, as they started to realize that DCIS is not early breast cancer. The LORD-trial, led by Wesseling as well, already tests whether leaving out treatment for low-risk DCIS is safe. So far, 60 percent of all women with low-risk DCIS in the Netherlands participate in this trial of which up to 80 percent opt for active surveillance and a better-preserved quality of life, as they do not have to carry the burden of possibly needless aggressive treatment. As co-author of the review article published today in The Lancet, Jelle Wesseling says: “This review provides a thorough summary of all the clinically relevant aspects of how women together with their doctors, and the society in general, may benefit from de-escalation strategies for management of DCIS. This work has identified the urgent need to prevent overdiagnosis and overtreatment of DCIS and support extensive research efforts, such as the PRECISION consortium and de-escalation trials, such as the LORD in the Netherlands and COMET in the USA. This can eventually spare thousands of women with DCIS from unnecessary treatment and save millions in health care costs annually, driven by the fundamental medical intention of first do no harm.” Read the publication ➡️ https://bit.ly/3WBqJXQ

🌟 CANCER GRAND CHALLENGES IS HIRING 🌟 We're looking for a Research Portfolio Manager to join our team! This role is an incredible opportunity to work at the forefront of cancer research on a global scale, and involves: ✅ Acting as a key scientific and strategic interface with our external research community — including leading scientists, academics and patient advocates ✅ Working with our Head of Research and Director to develop, shape and implement Cancer Grand Challenges' research strategy, as well as scientific development of key events ✅ Identifying scientific, collaborative and communications opportunities to develop ways to better progress and promote our work We're looking for someone with a strong scientific background (including expertise in cancer biology), who understands the current research landscape, is skilled at nurturing strong and collaborative relationships and has experience planning and delivering strategic projects. Learn more and apply today ⬇

Mutographs, a team funded by Cancer Grand Challenges, has discovered a DNA ‘fingerprint’ that could help identify a significant global cause of kidney cancer. Read more 👇

📣 NEW STUDY 📣 Congratulations to #CancerGrandChallenges team Mutographs on their paper published in Nature today, which was co-authored by Sarah Moody and Sergey Senkin. Demonstrating the power of their #MutationalEpidemiology approach, the team uncovered mutational signatures underlying global variance in #KidneyCancer incidence rates. Led by Paul Brennan at IARC - International Agency for Research on Cancer / World Health Organization and Mike Stratton at Wellcome Sanger Institute, Mutographs sequenced 962 (kidney cancer/ccRCC) genomes from 11 countries, across four continents 🌏 They made the following three key findings: 💡 They identified a new mutational signature of unknown origin, found in all countries, whose mutation load correlates with global incidence rates (SBS40b) 💡 In Japan, they identified a mutational signature of unknown origin (SBS12), found in ~70% of cases 💡 In the Balkan region, they found a mutational signature, SBS22, associated with aristolochic acids, indicating widespread Aristolochia plant extract exposure Further work will be needed to identify if these mutational signatures are causal in cancer development, if the population is still being exposed and how exposure leads to mutation. Read the paper 👇

Meet one of our newest #CancerGrandChallenges teams, team SAMBAI 👋 Funded by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and National Cancer Institute (NCI), SAMBAI is tackling our Cancer inequities challenge. The team is led by Dr Melissa Boneta Davis (Morehouse School of Medicine), and unites investigators from four countries. Learn more about SAMBAI and their approach to the challenge below 🔽