Cancer Grand Challenges gives a record £100m to five cancer research teams

£40m to improve treatment options for children’s and young people’s cancers

Two teams, KOODAC and PROTECT, have been funded to take on the solid tumours in children challenge. They join team NexTGen, who have been working on a similar challenge since 2022. Cancer Grand Challenges have now committed to invest a total of £60m into improving cancer treatments for children and young people. 

Solid tumours in children are often driven by different genetic changes, or mutations, than adult tumours. They start in developing cells, rather than mature ones, so we usually can’t treat them with targeted drugs that work for older people, like cancer growth blockers. In fact, many of the mutated proteins that drive childhood cancers have historically been considered ‘undruggable’.  

So, while targeted drugs have helped improve how we treat many types of adult cancer, children and young people diagnosed with some types of solid tumour today are in a similar position to those diagnosed in the early 1990s.

They’re still primarily treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which kill cancer cells, but can also damage other healthy ones. Even when they work successfully, these treatments can cause severe long term side effects like infertility, or even increase the risk of future cancers.

But things are changing. Scientists have found the mutations that cause childhood cancers, and they’ve studied what exactly they do. Now, with Cancer Grand Challenges funding, KOODAC and PROTECT are in position to drug the undruggable. They’re developing children’s and young people’s cancer treatments that don’t just block the proteins made by mutated cancer cells, but break them down until they can’t function.  

That process is so targeted that it has the potential to kill cancer cells without harming healthy ones. As well as helping more children survive cancer, these drugs could also cause far fewer side effects than other treatments.

Understanding our immune systems and cancer

Team MATCHMAKERS will also focus on improving cancer treatments. Their work on immunotherapies will start with a deep study of how the immune system recognises cancer.

To grow and survive, cancers need to evade immune cells called T cells. We have tens of millions of those inside us. Each one is equipped with a receptor that can spot and latch onto a slightly different threat, whether that’s a breast cancer cell or a type of infection. When a T cell finds its dark match, it leads the immune system to attack it.

Most of the time, this is enough to keep us healthy. Cancer is rare because potential cancer cells can’t grow or survive unless they can trick immune cells into thinking they aren’t dangerous. If they manage that, though, the immune system can’t defend against them.

Immunotherapies are designed to stop that happening, retraining T cells to spot hidden cancers so they can lead the immune response needed to deal with the danger. When they work, these treatments can save lives, but they aren’t effective for everyone. It’s likely that’s linked to the fact we don’t know enough about all the ways different T cells in our bodies might see cancers.

So, MATCHMAKERS plan to track and record all the potential ways T cell receptors can identify cancer cells. Working with artificial intelligence programs, they will then use this data to predict which of all the millions of human T cell receptors have the best chance of seeing an individual’s cancer.

Ultimately, that could make it possible for scientists to create T cell receptors that match specific features of different people’s cancers – guidance systems for a new generation of personalised immunotherapies.

To uncover what’s causing this rise, PROSPECT will line up data on life experiences, genetic changes and generational trends. They’ll also use what they find out to develop ways of preventing these cancers, which they plan to test in the US, UK and India. 

Facing up to cancer inequities

SAMBAI, meanwhile, are taking on the cancer inequities challenge. They’ve been funded to see why different groups of people have different chances of developing and surviving cancer. The team is also expanding Cancer Grand Challenges’ global reach to Africa, with scientists from institutions in Ghana and South Africa, as well as the US and UK. 

Together, SAMBAI will be looking at how our cancer risks and cancer outcomes are shaped by the world we live in and the one within each of us. In the first case, that means gathering data on people’s social circumstances and environments. It will also involve looking closely at people’s genes, and even considering the different ways their tumours and immune cells might interact.  

All of that will come together in an unprecedented resource – the SAMBAI Biobank and Data Repository for Cancer Equity Research – focused on breast, prostate and pancreatic cancer in people of African descent. With data on 40,000 patients, it will provide the basis for understanding why diverse populations are affected by cancer differently.  

More than that, SAMBAI hope to use what they learn to develop cancer prevention and treatment strategies designed to address cancer inequities. That’s vital, as breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers are typically more aggressive and are diagnosed at an earlier age in Black individuals. 

Challenges and change

But this is about more than the individual teams. In the years to come, the SAMBAI Biobank and Data Repository for Cancer Equity Research will enable researchers from around the world to ask and answer some of the most important questions around cancer inequalities.

Similarly, members of Team PROTECT will work with policymakers to find ways to fund more drug development for children’s and young people’s cancers. That would make announcements like this one – of £40m dedicated to helping more children live longer, better lives – far more common.  

The £100m pledged today will fund five world-leading teams through five years of vital work. But they were chosen for more than that. These teams can make a difference – for scientists, doctors, politicians, parents and people with cancer – for generations to come.

Tim