Welcome to the City of London Centre Newsletter, going forward our newsletter will be combined with RadNet News and Events.
News
Successful CRUK CoL Centre Symposium: New directions for targeting the immune-tumour interface
We enjoyed two days of amazing talks and posters during the CRUK City of London Symposium "New directions for targeting the immune-tumour interface". This event brought together over 200 scientists from the CRUK, King's, QMUL, and UCL. Many thanks to everyone who took part!
Cancer Research Horizons and Lean Life Science Launch the Oncology Development Programme (ODP2) to Accelerate High Impact Novel Cancer Innovations
ODP2 aims to identify, de-risk and catalyse commercially viable UK-based innovations to improve diagnosis and treatment of cancer and accelerate the translation of emerging cancer research for patient benefit. ODP2 will give the next big UK-based breakthroughs in oncology access to bespoke expert scientific review, clinical study design, technical gap analysis, financial / business value modelling and integrated project planning. Find out more
CRUK launches TRACERx EVO
Today, Cancer Research UK has announced TRACERx EVO, a new programme that builds on the discoveries made in the world’s largest long-term lung study, TRACERx.
Charles Swanton, Sergio Quezada and Caroline Dive will co-lead an international consortium of researchers in four countries, with workstreams led by Caroline, Nicholas McGranahan, Emilia Lim, Erik Sahai, Julian Downward and Mariam Jamal-Hanjani. Read more
Brexit and COVID-19 could cause European cancer epidemic
Lancet Oncology Commission: ‘European Groundshot—addressing Europe’s cancer research challenges’,co-led by Professor Richard Sullivan (KCL), talks about the significant challenges that need urgently addressed to improve cancer survival rates in Europe. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed weaknesses in the European cancer research landscape, with clinicians seeing 1.5 million fewer cancer patients in the first year of the pandemic and one-in-two cancer patients failing to receive surgery or chemotherapy in a timely manner. The study also finds Brexit will continue to negatively impact European cancer research unless European funders/research community and the UK government/research community could be restored. Read more
Dr Nicholas McGranahan (UCL) and Professor Charles Swanton (Crick/UCL) among the academics recognized in Clarivate’s annual ‘Highly Cited Researchers List’ 2022
The list identifies around 6,940 researchers from 69 countries across the globe who have demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field(s) through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Read more
Senior King's oncologists weigh in on government health initiative
Professor Richard Sullivan and Dr Ajay Aggarwal have published an article for the British Medical Journal that weighs in on the government’s My Planned Care initiative and offers alternative solutions to managing treatment backlogs. Read more
Other funding opportunities NIHR allocates funding for bone metastasis research
The national Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has launched a new funding call for research into bone metastasis, following the identification of this area of unmet need by NCRI. The treatment of bone metastases poses a significant health and economic burden and occurs in 7 out of every 10 people with advanced cancer. Applications must be submitted online no later than 1pm on 4 January 2023. Applications will be considered by the HTA Funding Committee at its meeting in March 2023. More information can be found here
Events
3D Models of the Tumour Micro-environment Workshop
Date and venue 15th February 2023
UCL Centre for 3D models of Health and Disease - Charles Bell House on the Bloomsbury Campus
Organised by Prof Frances Balkwill (QMUL) and Prof Umber Cheema (UCL)
Register using this link and password 3D2023
This event is exclusively for CoL Centre members
ACED Patient Advocate Session
Date and time 13th December 2022, 5:00 pm–7:00 pm Online
The International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection (ACED) presents its first symposium on patient advocacy in research. This session will provide an opportunity to learn from patient advocates and experienced researchers how the involvement of patients and public advocates can improve both the quality and relevance of research, and can help researchers to better understand and articulate the benefits their work can have for cancer patients.
‘Let’s Talk About’ seminar series 5th December, 12-12.45 pm
Dr Katherine Rogers, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Post-Doctoral Fellow Join us at our next ‘Let’s Talk About’ seminar, organised between the Cancer Research UK Manchester and City of London Centres. Our sixth seminar focuses on Health Inequalities in the Signing Deaf Community, taking place on Monday 5 December from 12-12.45 pm via Zoom. Register via Eventbrite.
LMCB seminars 22nd November, 2:30pm
Speaker: Prof. Eva Hedlund (Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Stockholm University, Sweden)
Title: ’Spatial sequencing and 3D in vitro modelling in ALS'
Host: Chris Shaw
Hybrid: King’s College London, James Black Centre, Large Seminar Room
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81282836267
Meeting ID: 812 8283 6267
22nd November, 4:00pm
Speaker: Prisca Liberali (Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research)
Title: “Design principles of tissue organisation - symmetry breaking in intestinal organoids"
Host: Yanlan Mao
Hybrid: LMCB Seminar Room and Online on MS Teams
Meeting ID: 380 703 042 456 Passcode: onqssr
28th November, 4.00pm Peng He (Wellcome Sanger Institute) “Deciphering human organogenesis principles with single-cell and spatial technologies"
This is a hybrid seminar LMCB Seminar Room and Online on MS Teams
Cancer behavioral science webinar series Tuesday 6th December, 3.00pm
Dr Kate Rendle Achieving Equitable Eligibility, Uptake and Adherence in Lung Cancer Screening: a US perspective’
Hosted by CRUK City of London Centre and the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine cancer special interest group. Register for the event here.
Meet Our RadNet Community,
This month we are combining our celebration of World Radiography Day which took place on the 8th November.2022 and Meet RadNet. Here is what they said on the day;
Alex Gore and Hannah Powell are the Lead Radiotherapy Research Radiographers working within Oncology Research at The Royal Free Hospital “We are proud to work in radiation research because every day we contribute to the improvement of cancer treatments which in turn makes positive health outcomes more accessible for the public and allow for enhanced resource allocation for the NHS
Samantha Terry works in Kings Imagining and medicine: "I am proud to work in radiation research because it is super cool and cutting-edge; we are creating injectable radioactive drugs that irradiate cancer cells spread throughout the body, all at once!"
Catarina Isabel Correia Veloso Da Veiga - “I am proud to work in radiation research because I learned some basic science like physics and maths and applied it to make a difference to people’s lives”
Amanda Webster made us a video which can be viewed here -https://twitter.com/i/status/1589976043405705216
Dr Rita Pedrosa presented a talk at the CRUK Lung Cancer conference in Manchester. She described how tumours that grow in highly vascularised organs, like lung, co-opt existing vessels to colonise and spread. The research examines activation of signalling pathways in vasculature ECs following radiotherapy, and how to target these to improve responses to radiotherapy.
CRUK RadNet City of London and the European Working Group on the Radiobiology of Molecular Radiotherapy are delighted to announce that the 2nd International Workshop on Radiobiology of Molecular Radionuclide Therapy (IWRMR) symposium and workshop will take place as a face-to-face event (with an online observation option) from 13th to 14th March 2023 at the Francis Crick Institute. The meeting provides a broad platform for presentation of cutting–edge radionuclide biological radiation research, with space to discuss lessons learned from external beam radiotherapy. The workshop will also facilitate the development of new collaborations in dedicated sessions that complement the oral and poster presentations.