More science

The Francis Crick Institute in London is purpose-built for discovery without boundaries. A place where more than 1,500 scientists from different disciplines work together to understand more about human health and disease. A place where the barriers between academia, healthcare and industry are dissolved, and where skilled creative teams work in open spaces that connect open minds.

The institute has become a destination of choice for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows, who come from 70 countries across the globe. And we give them the funds to explore the biggest questions, the facilities to innovate and the freedom to think big and do more.

Huge wins so far include the success of the TRACERx project, the world’s largest long-term lung cancer study, which has already revealed crucial links with air pollution and suggested that a simple blood test could predict cancer’s return. Meanwhile, another team has drawn on neurology, biology and bioinformatics to turn the clock back on motor neurone disease and identify the molecular events that set it in motion.

More discovery

Less disease

The Crick was set up to do science differently. With your support, we can take it to the next level, allowing researchers to take an even longer-term view and unlock knowledge that will save lives.

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More translation and innovation

Making discoveries is what we do. But each discovery we make, paper we publish, laboratory innovation we achieve and question we answer is only as important as the life-saving and life-changing tests and treatments it generates.

We need more innovation and more translation of research across the board, for all types of cancer. And we can’t rely on the market alone to drive this progress, especially when it comes to less commercially attractive areas, such as childhood cancers, rare brain tumours and making existing treatments kinder.

This is where we play a critical role, nurturing innovative ideas, accelerating them into interventions that will benefit people with cancer and creating a stronger pipeline from the lab to the clinic.

We bring together life science organisations, investors and researchers to accelerate progress. And with our focus solely on beating cancer, we can judge an idea on the impact it could make and the lives it could save, not on the money it could make.

To date, we’ve funded 60 start-ups, brought 11 new cancer drugs to market, built an innovation arm as big as a medium-sized biotech firm and developed the intellectual property that earns the royalties to fund even more research.

With your support, we can take new risks that could lead to even bigger rewards.

Can we develop more targeted therapies to tackle childhood cancers?

Can we develop early detection devices to spot more cancers sooner?

Could those devices be saving lives within a decade, or less?

We can’t say for sure. But for the sake of millions of futures, we must try.

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More leaders

Supporting future leaders at Cancer Research UK means finding and funding the best researchers from every background at a crucial, early stage in their careers. And making sure they receive the right training and mentoring to reach their potential.

But the demands on young scientists are tough. Some never get the chance to embark on a career in research. Some reach a critical juncture where they have to choose between work and family. Some might reach a midpoint in their career and find themselves cut adrift from a funding pipeline.

To date, we’ve invested millions into the careers of young researchers. We’ve designed and refined a programme to support the brightest science stars through their careers. We’ve improved funding for clinical researchers. And we’ve partnered with others to address inequalities in medical training.

Many of the researchers we funded early in their careers have gone on to become leaders in their fields. With your support, we can find and fund the research leaders of the future.

More grand challenges

There are complex and long-standing challenges in cancer research that no one team or institution can tackle alone. Questions that, if answered, could lead to a step-change in how we understand and treat the disease.

Cancer Grand Challenges, which we co-founded with the National Cancer Institute in the US, unites the world’s brightest minds across disciplines and geographic borders to take on these challenges and answer these questions.

Through the initiative, we’re building an exceptional global community of researchers, patient advocates and partners. Already, it has empowered 16 teams drawn from 92 research institutes across 16 countries to start finding answers to 13 of cancer’s toughest challenges. In March 2024, Cancer Grand Challenges announced five new teams who will be taking on four of these challenges - Cancer inequities, Early-onset cancers, Solid tumours in children and T-cell receptors. 

More questions...

... more answers

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