Kyung Chae Jeong, National Cancer Center, South Korea

Cancer Research UK is the world's leading independent charity dedicated to cancer research, spending around £300 million a year on world-class research to beat cancer. In November 2008, the charity launched a five-year plan to focus research on core areas of science that will have the greatest impact on reducing cancer deaths, with an emphasis on cancers that have poor survival rates.

Funding by Cancer Research UK covers all aspects of cancer research, from understanding fundamental cancer cell biology to large epidemiology studies across entire populations of people, as well as training the next generation of research scientists.

Formed in 2002 by the amalgamation of the two largest UK cancer charities – the Cancer Research Campaign and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund – Cancer Research UK continues a century-long history of funding cancer research. Its annual research budget funds the work of over 4500 scientists, doctors and nurses across the UK, including research at a number of specialised institutes and centres. The most recent of the core-funded institutes, the Cambridge Research Institute (CRI), is a flagship research enterprise located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

In 2007–8, Cancer Research UK spent just over £31.5 million on laboratory research and clinical trials in Cambridge; around £17.5 million of this annual research spend provided core funding for the CRI.

Funding by Cancer Research UK covers all aspects of cancer research, from understanding fundamental cancer cell biology to large epidemiology studies across entire populations of people, as well as training the next generation of research scientists. Some examples in Cambridge include:

  • Several programme grants and a significant element of core funding to the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, where research is helping to uncover what goes wrong when a cell becomes cancerous, by investigating the processes that ensure that cells function correctly during normal development.
  • Funding the two UK arms of the largest study of diet and health ever undertaken – the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) – a long-term study of more than half a million people in 10 European countries. The University of Cambridge manages the Norfolk arm of EPIC, which has recruited more than 30,000 people.
  • Scientists at the Strangeways Research Laboratory and Department of Oncology, who are searching for genes that increase cancer risk and investigating how the effects of the genes combine with lifestyle factors to cause cancer.
  • Cancer Research UK PhD Training Programme in Medicinal Chemistry, a collaborative initiative that brings together research groups with expertise in synthesis chemistry, pharmacology, biochemistry and cancer biology to train synthesis chemists to PhD level.

For more information, please visitwww.cancerresearchuk.org


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