| Dear Voornaam, Welcome to your February newsletter. In the last month Nature Cancer launched its first issue, with Cancer Research UK contributing to 2 articles in its debut. Our Chief Scientist, Karen Vousden was among 10 people invited to give their viewpoint on the major breakthroughs to come in the next decade in cancer research, while Karen Noble (Head of Research Careers), our Chief Clinician Charles Swanton and co-authors published an important paper on the future of clinician-scientists.
Read more below about highlights from across Cancer Research UK, including a new partnership to promote entrepreneurialism, and keynote speakers for the upcoming Brain Tumour Conference.
Kind regards, Iain Foulkes Executive Director, Research & Innovation Cancer Research UK |
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| | | MID-CAREER RESEARCHER, ESTABLISHED INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER, CLINICIAN, NON-CLINICAL RESEARCHER 20 February 2020 |
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| | | ESTABLISHED INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER, CLINICIAN, NON-CLINICAL RESEARCHER 20 February 2020 |
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| | | EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER, MID-CAREER RESEARCHER, ESTABLISHED INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER, NON-CLINICAL RESEARCHER, CLINICIAN 07 March 2020 |
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| | | ESTABLISHED INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER, CLINICIAN 19 March 2020 |
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| | | ESTABLISHED INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER, CLINICIAN 19 March 2020 |
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| | | CLINICIAN, POST DOC, EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL 26 March 2020 |
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| | | CLINICIAN, NURSE, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL, PRE-PHD
26 March 2020 |
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| | SECURING THE FUTURE OF CLINICAN-SCIENTISTS “There is an acute need for more training programs that offer multi-year immersion in the lab, which would increase the possibility that physicians receive the best scientific training and continue as clinician-scientists.” In a recent Nature Cancer article, Charlie Swanton (The Francis Crick Institute), Karen Noble (Cancer Research UK), and co-authors explore the challenges facing clinician-scientists, discussing reasons for high attrition rates and providing insights into what can be done to ensure this crucial career remains an attractive and viable option. |
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 PROMOTING EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH Iain Foulkes, our Executive Director of Research & Innovation, shares his views on achieving research excellence in positive research environments.
“Pursuing research excellence should not necessarily lead to a bullying culture. Competition for funding – a mechanism for distributing scarce resource – shouldn’t either,” writes Iain.
Given the issues highlighted by some researchers in the recent Wellcome Trust survey on research culture, Iain believes it is incumbent on us all – funders, research institutions and individual researchers – to ensure a positive research culture, where research excellence, effective mentoring and good people management are essential starting points. |
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|  10 PERSPECTIVES ON THE NEXT 10 YEARS IN RESEARCH What will the next decade bring to advance and progress the cancer research field? With the launch of Nature Cancer, 10 cancer researchers reflect on the major developments of the last 10 years and give insight on what they envision will be the next breakthroughs in the 2020s.
Bringing a variety of perspectives, they highlight the need to better understand cancer survival mechanisms to improve treatment strategies, advances in technology to progress mouse-model systems for basic and translational research, and having bespoke dietary recommendations to augment response to therapies.
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| | NOBEL PRIZE WINNER TO SPEAK AT BRAIN CONFERENCE 2020 We're excited to announce our keynote speakers for this year’s CRUK Brain Tumour Conference: Nobel Prize laureate Sir Peter J Ratcliffe (University of Oxford, The Francis Crick Institute) and Douglas Hanahan (Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research).
Peter and Douglas join a stellar line-up of international experts in a programme curated by our steering committee – Richard Gilbertson (CRUK Cambridge Centre), Simona Parrinello (UCL) and Michelle Monje (Stanford University).
Our abstract deadline (21 February 2020) is fast approaching – don’t miss your chance to showcase your work:
- Poster abstracts: All attendees are eligible to submit
- Future Leaders session: We're also giving up-and-coming students and postdocs the opportunity to showcase their work as part of our Future Leaders session.
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 TARGETING STROMA IN DRUG-RESISTANT LYMPHOMA Bone marrow stromal cells are essential to the survival of haematological malignancies, as their production of protein kinase C-beta (PKC-β) contributes to drug resistance. Recent data published in Science Translational Medicine demonstrates that inhibiting this protein’s production increases chemotherapy sensitivity.
Speaking about his publication in The Conversation, Dr Ingo Ringhausen (Clinician Scientist, The University of Cambridge) said, “This “double strike” on immune cancers has the potential to significantly enhance current treatments and extend life expectancy for many patients.”
Cancer Research UK, University of Cambridge Enterprise and the National Cancer Research Institute will support Ingo and his team to translate this research to clinical trials.
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|  EMPOWERING CANCER RESEARCH ENTREPRENEURS We're partnering with Start Codon to give you the opportunity to learn more about entrepreneurship. Start Codon is a business accelerator which will support oncology researchers to explore entrepreneurship opportunities. Based in Cambridge, Start Codon will run monthly networking events and workshops on topics such as company formation, operations, team building, customer discovery and fundraising. We're offering this opportunity as part of our Entrepreneurial Programmes - an initiative to develop an entrepreneurial culture amongst cancer researchers in the UK. |
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| | ANALYSIS ON UK HEALTH RESEARCH FUNDING PUBLISHED The UK Health Research Analysis 2018 report summarises the health funding from 146 charity, professional, and public sector organisations. The analysis, published by the Medical Research Council, on behalf of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, found that £4.8bn of health research was funded in 2018.
Cancer research was the second most funded health category, receiving 18.9% of total funding. Cancer Research UK was the largest single funder of cancer research, contributing 45%, and has maintained its level of funding over a 14-year reporting period.
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| | APPLY NOW: HEALTHY LONGEVITY GLOBAL GRAND CHALLENGE The National Academy of Medicine is accepting proposals for the Catalyst Phase of the Healthy Longevity Global Competition. The competition is open to researchers of any background, including science, medicine, public health, technology, public policy, and more. With 450 awards worth $50,000 each, the competition is available in over 40 countries and territories worldwide through Global Collaborator organisations. UK Research and Innovation is the UK collaborator, and is accepting project proposals with an academic lead from a UK research organisation. Deadline: 13 February 2020, 16:00 (GMT) |
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 OUR RESEARCH INTEGRITY GUIDELINES HAVE BEEN UPDATED We have updated and aligned our guidelines for research conduct to reflect the October updates to the Concordat to Support Research Integrity. The changes require Host Institutions to: - Produce an annual research integrity statement which provides an update on how the requirements of the Concordat are being met. This must be presented to their governing body and subsequently made publicly available.
- State on their website: 1) A named senior staff member responsible a named senior staff member responsible for overseeing research integrity. 2) Contact details of a named first point of contact.
- Note that independent external members must be included in formal research misconduct investigation panels
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|  HELP SHAPE THE FUTURE OF CANCER CARE Are you aware of the key themes in UK health systems and services that will shape cancer prevention and survival in the next 20 years?
The Cancer Research UK Policy team are looking to understand, from your perspective, the biggest medium-to-long term opportunities and challenges for UK health systems and services.
- How can the NHS provide the best environment for conducting research?
- What are the major barriers stopping health systems from preventing and curing more cancers?
- What are the opportunities we will need to embrace?
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| | | EDINBURGH, UK 27 February 2020 |
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| | | BRISTOL, UK 16 March 2020 |
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| | | THE FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE, LONDON, UK 19 March 2020 |
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| | | SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, USA 24 April 2020 |
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| | | CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA 29 May 2020 |
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| | | TORINO, ITALY 17 June 2020 |
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| | | CAMBRIDGE, UK 27 July 2020 |
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