Dear Voornaam,

Our new image campaign – Research is beautiful – is now open for entries. We’re looking for captivating images that showcase your research. It could be your science from the microcosm to the macrocosm; you and your fellow researchers in action; as well as research environments spanning from the lab to research events. Anything that captures your work, or your passion for your work is welcome.

Email us your photos now. T&Cs apply.

Stay tuned to #ResearchIsBeautiful on our social media for our monthly picks.

Catch us at #PrevConf24 debate session: chemoprevention is dead?

Our head of prevention research, David Crosby, will be chairing a debate session at our Cancer Prevention Research Conference on 25-27 June in Boston on the future of chemoprevention.

Join Karen Brown (University of Leicester) and Scott Lippman (University of California, San Diego) as they exchange views upon the past decades of prevention research with drugs or compounds taken from dietary and natural sources in the context of future precision intervention modalities.

Follow #PrevConf24 on our social channels for more conference updates.

#CRUKFunded: New insights into the interplay between diet the microbiome and the immune system

In a paper recently published in Science, researchers found that vitamin D rich diets could improve cancer immunity.

The study, headed up by Evangelos Giampazolias, Group Leader of the Cancer Immunosurveillance Group at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute and Caetano Reis e Sousa, senior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute, gave mice diets rich in vitamin D. They found the vitamin D acted on epithelial cells in the intestine, promoting growth and improving the metabolic qualities of the bacteria Bacteroides fragilis, which in turn boosts T-cell responses to cancer. How B.fragilis acts to improve tumour immunity remains unknown, but the study findings point towards MyD88-dependent receptor signalling and type I IFN production as potential key factors.

The researchers further investigated this effect in humans by analysing a dataset of 1.5m people in partnership with the Aalborg University in Denmark, which highlighted a link between lower vitamin D levels and a higher risk of cancer. A separate analysis also found a positive link between cancer patients with higher levels of vitamin D and response to immunotherapy.