| Dear Voornaam, Welcome to your December newsletter. I hope you and your family are well. As part of our commitment to promoting fair and inclusive research environments, we’re working with partners to make cancer research an accessible career for everyone, particularly those from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. Earlier this year, we partnered with In2scienceUK to sponsor a mentoring programme for young people, with a number of our scientific staff participating as mentors. Our blog post features the stories of some of the students and mentors who took part. With the same organisation, we’re supporting the In2research programme which is now recruiting its first cohort of STEM undergrads who are considering a PhD. The programme includes mentoring, workshops, and a funded summer research placement. We’re also empowering staff from minority backgrounds aiming for leadership roles in higher education in the StellarHE programme.
As a major funder of research, this is an important priority for us to address. Fixing the system will take time and a collaborative effort. But we’ll continue to work with others to make change happen. As 2021 draws to a close, I'd like to thank all our Cancer Research UK-funded researchers for all that you do. We’ve seen some incredible research findings this year and we are optimistic that next year will further strengthen CRUK’s recovery, enabling us to support more brilliant people and their ideas. Kind regards, Iain Foulkes Executive Director, Research & Innovation Cancer Research UK |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
| | | Applications accepted all-year round |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
 PROFESSOR EITHNE COSTELLO: ON THE ROAD TO EARLY DETECTION Professor Eithne Costello leads the CRUK-funded UK-Early Detection Initiative for pancreatic cancer, which aims to detect pancreatic cancer earlier in individuals newly diagnosed with diabetes. In our blog post, Eithne discusses the challenges of ambitious trials, the evolution of early detection as a field in its own right, the need for multidisciplinary collaboration and why a guiding framework is important. |
|
|---|
|  JOIN THE CRUK-OICR NETWORKING EVENTS We'll be hosting a series of virtual workshops with colleagues at the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research in January. They'll bring together UK and OICR researchers on exciting priority areas of research including hereditary cancers and risk, detection and prognosis of early and precancerous lesions, and windows of opportunity trials. |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
 CRUK BRAIN TUMOUR CONFERENCE – ABSTRACT SUBMISSION NOW OPEN The Cancer Research UK Brain Tumour Conference is taking place on 16–18 May 2022 in London.
All attendees are invited to submit a poster abstract based on any of the session themes. Posters will be available to view throughout the conference. Don’t miss out on the chance to showcase your work alongside a stellar line-up of international experts. Abstract deadline: 11 February |
|
|---|
|  TAKING ON DNA REPAIR TO TACKLE CANCER Artios Pharma is pioneering therapeutics to target the POLθ DNA repair mechanism in a broad range of cancers. Having entered first-in-human trials with their POLθ inhibitor, we tell the story from discovery of the DNA repair mechanism all the way through to translation of research. |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
 HELP DETERMINE UK PRIORITIES IN OESOPHAGEAL AND GASTRIC CANCER If you have experience of looking after patients with oesophageal or gastric cancer, or have an interest in these cancers, UK Priorities for Research in Oesophageal & Gastric Cancer want to hear from you. They're leading on a project to identify areas of research that patients, carers and healthcare professionals feel should be prioritised to help improve the care of patients with oesophageal and gastric cancers. By completing this survey, you'll help decipher a list of priority research areas to improve the lives of people living with these cancer types. |
|
|---|
|  BE A PART OF NCRI’S NETWORK FOR CANCER RESEARCHERS Join the NCRI Networks and be part of a central hub of cancer researchers involved in NCRI Group activities, ensuring they are wide-reaching, inclusive and diverse. The NCRI Groups are a key forum that brings the cancer research community together and coordinate activities to develop new research. Anyone interested in cancer research can join, including (but not limited to) clinicians, basic scientists, statisticians, nurses, allied health professionals, patients and carers and early career researchers. |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
| | TAKING PRIDE IN ALL OF OUR RESEARCHERS At CRUK, we believe that a diverse and inclusive research environment is crucial to beating cancer. For LGBTQ+STEM day, we spoke to two CRUK Beatson Institute scientists – Dr David Bryant and Dr Amy Tibbo – about the importance of diversity in research, and the importance of bringing your full self to your role. |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
 POTENTIAL NEW DRUG COMBINATION FOR CHILDREN WITH INCURABLE BRAIN CANCER Elisa Izquierdo, Professor Chris Jones and colleagues at The Institute of Cancer Research highlight the MAPK pathway as a therapeutic target in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). The part CRUK-funded study, published in Cancer Discovery, found that a combination of MEK inhibitor trametinib with dasatinib was effective against cells that had evolved resistance to single drug treatment – offering hope that it could help to keep the disease at bay for longer. |
|
|---|
|  RECENT FINDINGS FROM CRUK CO-FUNDED IMPORT STUDY Recent findings from the IMPORT study show that children in the UK and Ireland continue to be diagnosed with larger and more advanced tumours in the UK and Ireland than in other Western European countries. The study findings were presented at the NCRI Festival by Reem Al-Saadi, senior translational research manager at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. IMPORT is one of the only two initiatives in the world to collect standardised data on the route to diagnosis for a child with kidney cancer. |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
| | | Register your interest 18 October 2022 |
|
|---|
|
|---|
|
|
| Been forwarded this email? Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date. |
|---|
| |
|---|
|
|
|
