The UK will be transformed into a global hub for radiotherapy research, pioneering the use of the latest techniques such as FLASH radiotherapy and artificial intelligence, with a new £56 million* research network announced by Cancer Research UK today (Monday).
The network, Cancer Research UK RadNet, is the charity's largest ever investment in radiotherapy research and will accelerate the development of advanced radiotherapy techniques, challenging the boundaries of this mainstay treatment through world-first exploratory projects.
It will unite seven centres of excellence across the country**: the Universities of Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and Oxford, the Cancer Research UK City of London Centre (a partnership between UCL, Queen Mary University of London, King's College London the Francis Crick Institute) and The Institute of Cancer Research, London in partnership with The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: "Radiotherapy is a cornerstone of cancer medicine, with around 3 in 10 patients receiving it as part of their primary treatment. The launch of our network marks a new era of radiotherapy research in the UK. Scientists will combine advances in our understanding of cancer biology with cutting-edge technology to make this treatment more precise and effective than ever before".
Cancer Research UK supported some of the earliest research into radiotherapy, pioneering the use of radium to treat cancer in the 1920s. Modern radiotherapy works by targeting tumours with x-ray radiation, killing cancer cells by irreversibly damaging their DNA. Today, over 130,000 patients are treated with radiotherapy on the NHS every year.
Cancer Research UK RadNet aims to improve cancer survival by optimising and personalising radiotherapy. The centres will spearhead the development of new techniques for delivering radiotherapy and investigate new radiotherapy-drug combinations, including immunotherapies. Scientists will also focus on reducing the long-term side effects associated with this treatment, improving patients' quality of life during and after treatment.
The innovative research that Cancer Research UK RadNet will deliver includes:
- Exploring FLASH radiotherapy, where pulses of high-dose of radiation are delivered in a fraction of a second. Research so far suggests that FLASH has the potential to cause less damage to the healthy tissue surrounding the tumour than traditional radiotherapy, where tissues are exposed to lower doses of radiation over a longer period, often resulting in long-term side effects.
- Further investigation into proton beam therapy - an innovative type of radiotherapy that uses beams of protons, instead of photons, to destroy cancer. This key difference means that when the heavier protons reach their carefully mapped out target, they come to a halt, delivering a powerful burst of radiation precisely where it's needed. The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, in Manchester, is the first NHS hospital to provide high-energy proton beam therapy, with another centre to follow at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust next year. Cancer Research UK RadNet will support researchers across the country to optimise this new technology and maximise patient benefit.
- Investigating ways to overcome hypoxia - low oxygen levels within tumours, resulting from rapid cancer growth that blood vessels can't keep up with. Hypoxic tumours are far less susceptible to radiotherapy, as radiation interacts with oxygen to produce volatile molecules that help to destroy cancer. Scientists will develop better ways to identify hypoxic tumours and new treatments to oxygenate them, making radiotherapy much more powerful.
- Investigating why some cancers come back after radiotherapy by studying the role of cancer stem cells. These cells are remarkably resistant to radiation, and just a few stem cells remaining after treatment can cause a patient's cancer to come back. For some patients, targeting stem cells could be the key to unlocking radiotherapy's full potential.
- Developing and testing drugs that could be used in combination with radiotherapy. This will include immunotherapies - treatments that exploit the power of the body's immune system to fight cancer. They will also research how tumours are able to repair DNA damage caused by radiotherapy and use the latest gene-editing technology to develop drugs that interfere with this process.
- Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. Cancer Research UK RadNet researchers will use this technology to design personalised treatment plans guided by data from patients' scans. This could improve the accuracy with which doctors deliver radiotherapy and provide new treatment options for patients whose tumours were once thought too risky to target with radiation.
Cancer Research UK RadNet will be a beacon, attracting leading researchers from across the globe to boost radiotherapy research capacity in the UK. £13 million has been allocated to form new research groups and fund additional PhD students in Manchester, London and Cambridge, ensuring the UK's radiotherapy research community continues to thrive. The network will promote collaboration between diverse scientific fields, with a share of £4 million available to all centres for joint research projects, conferences and secondments between locations.
Dr Adrian Crellin, Cancer Research UK Trustee and Former Vice-President of the Royal College of Radiologists, said: "I've seen first-hand how successful radiotherapy can be for patients that I treat, but it's been frustrating to see the UK lagging behind other countries when it comes to prioritising research into this vital treatment. Cancer Research UK's investment will overhaul radiotherapy research in the UK to bring the next generation of treatments to patients sooner."
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For media enquiries contact Thomas Bullen in the Cancer Research UK press office on 020 3469 5171 or, out of hours, on 07050 264 059.
Notes to editor:
Cancer Research UK's executive director of research and innovation, Dr Iain Foulkes, is announcing the radiotherapy network at 11am today (Monday) at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) conference in Glasgow, during the session Celebrating collaborative radiotherapy research in the UK - CTRad 10 years on.
*over five years
**the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge and the Cancer Research UK City of London Centre have been awarded Radiation Research Unit status, receiving funding for infrastructure and research programmes. The Universities of Glasgow, Leeds and Oxford and The Institute of Cancer Research, London/The Royal Marsden have been awarded Radiation Research Centre status, receiving funding for infrastructure.
The University of Manchester has been awarded £16.5m, research will include:
- discovering how the latest technologies - proton beam FLASH and MR-Linac therapy (an MRI scanner combined with a radiotherapy machine) - work in combination with drugs and immunotherapies to improve cancer survival.
- personalising radiotherapy and increasing clinical trials for patients who are elderly or have other non-cancer diseases that complicate treatment.
- identifying biomarkers to help predict patient response to treatment.
- understanding the interaction between tumour genetics and hypoxia in decreasing tumour spread after radiotherapy.
- investigating the immune mechanisms of radiation injury in bowel and lung tissue.
The Cancer Research UK City of London Centre has been awarded £14m, research will include:
- the mechanisms of radiation resistance, including cancer evolution and cancer stem cells.
- how the tumour microenvironment and immune system affect the response to radiotherapy.
- advanced radiotherapy techniques, such as proton beam therapy and stereotactic radiotherapy, which uses multiple beams of radiation that converge on the tumour.
- personalising radiotherapy using artificial intelligence and improved tumour imaging.
- radiotherapy for children and young people's cancers.
The London partners will also work closely with University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and Barts Health NHS Trust.
The University of Cambridge has been awarded £8m, research will include:
- understanding how radiation interacts with cancer cells at a molecular level: how they become resistant to radiotherapy and how this can be overcome.
- using latest gene editing technology to search for new genetic targets for drug-radiotherapy combinations.
- trialling new drug-radiotherapy combinations and developing bio-markers to predict response to radiotherapy.
- using artificial intelligence to predict how tumours and normal cells react to radiotherapy.
The University of Glasgow has been awarded £3.5m, research will include:
- developing and testing new drug-radiotherapy combinations and radiotherapy techniques.
- improving radiotherapy for hard-to-treat cancers and those with poor prognosis (lung, brain, pancreatic and head and neck cancers).
- personalising treatment by developing new imaging techniques and identifying predictive biomarkers.
The University of Leeds has been awarded £3.5m, research will include:
- using artificial intelligence and MRI imaging technologies to improve the precision of radiotherapy delivery.
- developing and testing new drug-radiotherapy combinations.
- a focus on prostate, anal, rectal, liver and brain cancers.
- using imaging and blood samples to help predict how patients will respond to treatment.
The Institute of Cancer Research, London and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have been awarded £3.5m, research will include:
- understanding how cancer cells respond to radiotherapy at the molecular level.
- understanding how the immune system affects how cancer responds to radiotherapy.
- developing and testing new drug-radiotherapy combinations, including immunotherapies.
The University of Oxford has been awarded £3.5m, research will include:
- understanding the effect of the tumour microenvironment on radiotherapy.
- using artificial intelligence and imaging technologies to improve radiotherapy delivery.
- investigating the use of FLASH radiotherapy.
- understanding the effects of radiation and radiation-modifying agents on how the immune system recognises tumour cells.
About Cancer Research UK
- Cancer Research UK is the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research.
- Cancer Research UK's pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.
- Cancer Research UK receives no funding from the UK government for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on vital donations from the public.
- Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last 40 years.
- Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK's ambition is to accelerate progress so that by 2034, 3 in 4 people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years.
- Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.
- Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.
For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit http://www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.