Dear Voornaam,

Congratulations to Tim Elliott, Kevin Litchfield, Sarah Blagden, Mariam Jamal-Hanjani and Maise Albakir who’ll receive up to £1.7m to develop ‘LungVax’ – the world’s first vaccine to prevent lung cancer in high-risk populations.

LungVax uses the ChAdOx adenoviral vector, which was developed for the highly successful Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, to induce antigen-specific T cell responses. The vaccine will target a cocktail of hotspot clonal neoantigens in known driver genes for lung cancer, and additionally include two tumour-associated antigen targets.

Tim Elliott and colleagues aim to produce and pre-clinically test the vaccine. If successful, the vaccine will move straight into a Phase 1b/2 clinical trial led by Mariam Jamal-Hanjani. The study complements existing early detection efforts for people who are at greatest risk and could transform lung cancer survival, enabling vital first steps towards lung cancer prevention.

We co-fund LungVax with the CRIS Cancer Foundation. Learn more about the project.

Keep scrolling to find out more about our funding opportunities below and what’s happening in cancer research this week.

Kind regards,

Iain Foulkes
Executive Director Research & Innovation
CEO Cancer Research Horizons
Cancer Research UK