Cancer Grand Challenges Awards USD 125m to Five Global Research Teams
Cancer Grand Challenges, the global research funding initiative co-founded by Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute, has awarded USD 125 million to five interdisciplinary teams, each receiving up to USD 25 million over approximately five years. The initiative funds large-scale collaborative science aimed at cancer prevention, detection, and treatment. This round matches the previous record USD 125 million cycle and brings total funding since 2016 to USD 624 million.
The round was co-funded by the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research Institute, Children Cancer Free Foundation (KiKa), KWF Dutch Cancer Society, Torrey Coast Foundation, and Yosemite, an oncology-focused venture firm. Some teams are supported by more than one partner. The funding will support research across 34 institutions in nine countries, adding 42 senior investigators to the Cancer Grand Challenges community, which now numbers more than 1,800 researchers and collaborators across 21 teams.
The five funded teams span a range of research questions. The CAUSE team, led by Dr. Ludmil Alexandrov at the University of California San Diego, will develop technologies to identify transient chemical alterations on DNA caused by environmental exposures or internal biological processes that lead to mutations in colorectal, kidney, and liver cancers. The ATLAS team, led by Dr. Paul Bastard at Institut Imagine (INSERM and University of Paris), will study individuals who appear resistant to cancer, including cancer-free centenarians and heavy smokers who never develop the disease, mapping autoantibody patterns across lung, pancreatic, colorectal, breast, esophageal, liver, and pediatric cancers. The InteroCANCEption team, led by Dr. Leanne Li at the Francis Crick Institute, will investigate whether the brain's ability to sense and regulate the body through the nervous system can detect tumors and influence their development, with a focus on lung, pancreatic, and colorectal tumors. The REWIRE-CAN team, led by Professor Bart Vanhaesebroeck at the UCL Cancer Institute, University College London, will explore whether hyperactivating cancer growth signals, rather than blocking them, can force cancer cells into stress-induced death, with a focus on colorectal cancer and early-onset cases in younger patients. The ILLUMINE team, led by Professor Reuven Agami at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, will investigate the cancer "dark proteome," a set of proteins whose functions and roles in cancer remain largely unknown, across acute myeloid leukemia, ovarian, lung, pancreatic, and brain tumors.