Boost for Cambridge cancer research

Cambridge cancer scientists and clinicians are set to benefit from a multi-million pound investment from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) it was revealed today.
CRUK will invest more than £100 million across 15 cutting-edge research centres to help get new treatments and diagnostics to cancer patients sooner.
For Cambridge, this provides the backing needed to expand an already vibrant cross-disciplinary research hub. The funding will enable Cambridge cancer researchers across the University, research institutes and Addenbrooke’s Hospital to collaborate further with the aim of bringing more ground-breaking scientific discoveries into the clinic sooner to improve patient outcomes.
Cambridge's funding will be directed towards research on breast, prostate, haematological, pancreatic, oesophageal, ovarian and lung cancers, as well as genomics, molecular pathology and imaging. The award will also be used to expand the training programme for the next generation of cancer researchers and clinicians.
The investment marks the latest phase in the development of the Cancer Research UK Centres network of excellence – a unique chain of research hubs that have been established across the country. This new £100 million of funding will draw together world-class research and medical expertise to provide the best possible results for cancer patients nationwide.
The Cancer Research UK Centres are in: Belfast; Cambridge; Cardiff; Edinburgh; Barts, London; Glasgow; Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden, London; Leeds; Leicester; Manchester; Newcastle; Oxford; Southampton; Imperial College, London; and UCL, London.
The initiative brings together researchers and support from local universities, the NHS and Cancer Research UK. Each centre will focus on specific areas of research and aim to raise standards of care and forge links with local communities. Collaboration is key to the success of the Centres network – they will enable researchers who do not normally work together to exchange ideas and information more easily.
Professor Sir Bruce Ponder, director of the Cambridge Cancer Centre, added: "The network is giving us unprecedented opportunities to work effectively across the local hospital and university environment, while also opening up broader avenues for us to work with scientists in other Cancer Research UK centres around the country.
"This new funding will also help forge collaborations with other scientific fields that can help cancer research – in today’s fight against cancer we are pulling in support from many areas – physics, engineering, maths and many others that can help us have a real impact.
"All of this is especially important when working on rarer cancers or those cancers that are harder to detect and treat. For us, that means more opportunities to collaborate on pancreatic, oesophageal and lung cancers. And that means a better chance of making a discovery that could lead to a new treatment in those cancers."