Scientists are embarking on large-scale clinical studies of new personalized cancer treatments, which could give clinicians real-time insight into how treatments are working.
A £9m partnership between the Francis Crick Institute, five NHS trusts, charities and bioscience companies will spend four years investigating the effectiveness of new immunotherapy treatments and discovering new ways to detect cancer. Explore.
The scheme is one of several new research projects given the go-ahead by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology as part of a £118m package, which will explore new treatments such as cheap scanners, AI cancer and more. Five new sites will be created across the UK to develop the technology. Microdosing allows new drugs to be diagnosed and tested more quickly.
The Manifesto project, led by the Crick Institute, aims to identify which biomarkers, including genes, proteins and molecules, may indicate whether someone has undetected cancer. , will test tumor and blood samples taken from 3,000 patients suffering from cancer. The disease may return.
This could make a new wave of cancer treatments with immunotherapy even more effective. Immunotherapy is considered a promising form of cancer treatment because it stimulates a patient’s immune system to kill tumors, rather than a “cut, burn, poison” approach like surgery, radiation therapy, or chemotherapy. I am.
Professor Samra Turailik, clinical group leader at the Crick Institute and consultant oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital, has been involved in the treatment of melanoma, a skin cancer, for nearly 20 years.
“When I started my research, people were dying from advanced melanoma, usually within six months,” she said. Currently, more than half of patients with advanced melanoma who receive immunotherapy survive for at least 10 years.
The problem is that “we don’t know who will benefit and who will only receive side effects,” Turajlich said. And immunotherapy has so far been found to be effective only against certain types of cancer. The Manifesto project will focus on four cancers: melanoma, kidney cancer, bladder cancer and triple-negative breast cancer.
Professor Samra Turajlic: “We want to use biomarkers to see if treatments are working.” Photo: LinkedIn
Immunotherapy treatments are exploding around the world, but studies are often conducted on a small scale and it can be difficult for doctors to determine which ones will be effective for a particular patient. Biomarkers offer a potential solution.
“What we want to use biomarkers for is determining whether a treatment is working or not,” Turajlich said. “We believe that the interaction between cancer and the immune system is so complex that no single biomarker really provides the answer.
“So we’re going to take a huge number of measurements from the patient, including tumor samples, the patient’s blood, and the microbiome, and combine them with tests to understand which ones have the most predictive power. It’s never been done on a large scale before.”
It also plans to recruit a further 3,000 patients through partnerships with the Royal Marsden Barts Cancer Institute in London, The Christie in Manchester, NHS Lothian in Edinburgh and Cambridge University Hospitals. Other partners include the Cancer Research UK Biomarker Center in Manchester and IMU Biosciences.
Other plans UK Research and Innovation is building across its five hubs include portable imaging tools to help surgeons identify cancer and remove tumors, and a new NHS cross-section to pool data accessible to research teams. Includes a digital pathology data network.
“Cancer is a devastating disease that is affecting every family in the UK, including my own,” said Peter Kyle, Science and Technology Secretary.
These “amazing innovations… have the potential to change the way this terrible disease is treated and give hope to those facing it,” he added.
“They have the potential to widen the capacity of our NHS and ease the pressures we all see so clearly. They could put British businesses at the forefront of a lucrative emerging industry.
“They have the potential to grow our economy, leverage our health system and research sector as engines of growth, and in turn push us to do more to support innovators and invest in public services. We can unlock the funds we need to do so.”
Wes Streeting, Health and Social Care Secretary, said: “As a cancer survivor, I know how important early diagnosis and up-to-date cancer treatments are. “This investment will not only save lives but also strengthen the UK’s reputation as a life sciences and medical technology powerhouse. It also helps secure your position.”
