Five Global Teams Awarded $125 Million to Take on the Toughest Challenges at the Frontiers of Cancer Science

• Cancer Grand Challenges awards five global teams of scientists up to $25m each to take on questions that could open entirely new routes for cancer prevention, detection, and treatment
• The new inter-disciplinary teams will push the boundaries of cancer science – from harnessing natural immunity to triggering cancer cells to self‑destruct
• Work will also focus on exposing hidden proteins in cancer cells that could unlock new treatments, pinpointing unknown causes of DNA damage that could reveal new causes of cancer, and discovering whether manipulating the brain’s own signals can be used to fight tumors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cancer Grand Challenges, a global initiative co-founded by the National Cancer Institute in the US and Cancer Research UK, today announced a major $125m commitment to propel cancer research into uncharted territory. Five pioneering international teams will each receive up to $25m over approximately five years to tackle some of the most ambitious and unanswered questions in cancer.

Bringing together a global coalition of the world’s leading scientists, funders and philanthropists, Cancer Grand Challenges enables bold, long-term collaboration to pursue disruptive ideas that could open entirely new routes for cancer prevention, detection, and treatment. This latest investment matches the previous record $125m funding round and brings the total support for the initiative to $624m since 2016.

The five new teams will take on bold, ambitious challenges in cancer research — from harnessing natural immunity to cancer and triggering cancer cells to self-destruct, to revealing hidden proteins in cancer cells, uncovering unknown causes of DNA damage and exploring how manipulating the brain’s own signals might be used to fight tumors. The 2026 funding has been awarded to:

• The CAUSE Team will develop new technologies to uncover what causes permanent alterations in DNA called mutations – the genetic alterations that underpin the development and progression of cancer. The team will search for tiny, transient chemical alterations on DNA caused by exposure to chemicals in the environment or normal processes inside the body, which can lead to mutations. By studying patterns of DNA changes in colorectal, kidney and liver cancers, the team aims to reveal hidden causes of cancer and create powerful tools to transform prevention.
• The ATLAS Team will study remarkable groups of people who seem to avoid cancer – including cancer-free centenarians and individuals who would appear to be at a high risk due to factors such as heavy smoking or excessive alcohol consumption or genetic factors but never develop the disease. The team aims to uncover whether these groups carry distinctive autoantibodies – a type of antibody that targets the body’s own molecules and can sometimes help the immune system to spot early signs of tumors. By mapping these antibody patterns across individuals at high risk of cancer as well as patients with lung, pancreatic, colorectal, breast, esophageal and liver cancers, and pediatric cancer patients with relapsing or refractory disease, the team hopes to develop new tools for cancer prevention, detection, and treatment.
• The InteroCANCEption Team will explore how interoception – the brain’s ability to sense and regulate the state of the body through the nervous system – may enable the brain to detect tumors and influence how they develop. By tracing nerve pathways and mapping brain activity, the team aims to identify which signals between the brain and tumors are associated with cancer progression. The team will also investigate across lung, pancreatic and colorectal tumors whether adapting signaling from the brain to tumors, for example by drugs or neural implants, could be used as a treatment approach or to manage symptoms.
• The REWIRE-CAN Team will challenge the traditional approach of treating cancer by blocking cancer growth and survival signals by instead hyperactivating them, and pushing cells into overdrive, forcing cells to become stressed and causing cell suicide. The team will also aim to reprogram resistant tumors to become sensitive to treatment again. The team will explore its ideas in colorectal cancer where resistance to traditional treatments is a major problem, and where incidence of the disease in younger adults (known as early-onset colorectal cancer) is rising. Using patient samples across different stages of the disease – including early onset cases from younger patients and cutting-edge lab models like patient-derived organoids, they plan to rigorously test both the effectiveness and safety of these re-wiring drugs with the ultimate hope of transforming outcomes for patients with colorectal cancer.
• The ILLUMINE Team will explore the cancer “dark proteome,” an unusual set of proteins whose functions are largely unknown and whose role in cancer remains unclear. The team will investigate whether, and how, these proteins influence cancer development and progression, including in some of the hardest-to-treat cancers such as acute myeloid leukemia, ovarian, lung, pancreatic and brain tumors. Some of these ‘dark proteins’ could act as flags, also known as antigens, that the immune system can recognize. The goal of the team is to develop innovative immunotherapies targeting these mysterious proteins to improve treatment options.

Cancer Grand Challenges Scientific Committee Vice-Chair, Dr Judy Garber, said:

“These new global teams of scientists are tackling questions many would consider too difficult or too ambitious. By bringing together expertise from across the cancer research space, Cancer Grand Challenges is enabling the kind of collaborative science that has the potential to address these truly “grand challenges” and to actually to change how we prevent, detect and treat cancer worldwide.”

Director of Cancer Grand Challenges, Dr David Scott, said:

“Achieving impact at this scale is only possible because of the commitment of our co-founders Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute, together with our coalition of visionary funding partners who share our mission to transform the landscape of cancer research. Their support enables truly bold, high-risk science that wouldn’t be possible through traditional funding routes. By backing this new set of uniquely ambitious challenges, they are helping drive breakthroughs that could redefine how we think about, study, treat, and prevent cancer.”

US National Cancer Institute Deputy Director, Dr Dinah Singer, said,

“Solving cancer’s toughest problems requires scientific courage and collaboration. Through Cancer Grand Challenges, we are empowering teams to pursue innovative ideas that may reshape our understanding of how cancer begins, evolves and responds to treatment.”

“This partnership reflects CGC’s commitment to supporting transformative research that pushes beyond conventional boundaries and accelerates progress for patients in the United States and around the world.”

Launched in 2020, Cancer Grand Challenges takes a unique approach to collaboration, uniting the brightest minds from across the world and across disciplines to form global teams who pursue answers to some of the biggest questions facing cancer research and the treatment of people with cancer today.

Already, the initiative is reshaping how we think about, study, prevent and treat cancer. In less than a decade, past teams have transformed our understanding of how genetic mutations drive cancer, opened new therapeutic avenues and changed the way we think about tumor evolution and treatment resistance, developed cutting-edge tools to map tumors in three dimensions, revealed the complexity of the role of the microbiome in colorectal cancer, and uncovered clues as to why some early breast lesions develop into full cancers while others do not.

The Cancer Grand Challenges community has grown to more than 1,800 researchers and collaborators with 21 teams from across the world taking on 18 challenges. In this round, the funded teams span 34 institutions in 9 countries, and will add a further 42 senior investigators to the Cancer Grand Challenges community.

Teams selected for Cancer Grand Challenges awards will use that support over the next five years to address the challenge, carry out research, publish peer-reviewed findings, share data widely, and work toward advancing understanding or new approaches in their challenge area.

To make this round possible, Cancer Grand Challenges has received funding from the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research Institute, Children Cancer Free Foundation (KiKa), KWF Dutch Cancer Society, Torrey Coast Foundation, and Yosemite (oncology-focused venture firm), which are each co-funding one of the new teams. Some teams are supported by more than one partner, reflecting the collaborative nature of this funding round.

For more information on teams, team members and their approach to tackling these challenges, visit https://cancergrandchallenges.org/.

Notes to editor

Team ATLAS is led by Dr Paul Bastard at Institut Imagine (INSERM & University of Paris).

Team InteroCANCEption is led by Dr Leanne Li at the Francis Crick Institute.

Team REWIRE-CAN is led by Professor Bart Vanhaesebroeck at the UCL Cancer Institute, University College London.

Team ILLUMINE is led by Professor Reuven Agami at the Netherlands Cancer Institute.

Team CAUSE is led by Dr Ludmil Alexandrov at the University of California San Diego.

The Selection Process
Every two years, Cancer Grand Challenges consults the global research community through a series of workshops, thinktanks, and discussions with patient advocates, inviting them to share their perspectives on the greatest obstacles standing in the way of vital progress. The Cancer Grand Challenges Scientific Committee, comprising some of the world's most eminent researchers, then meets to discuss and debate the ideas and recommends a set of complex challenges that it believes can be solved.

International teams are then invited to propose bold, interdisciplinary research projects designed specifically to tackle these challenges, with the successful teams announced the following year.

Combining Ambition and Innovation
Cancer Grand Challenges employs a unique funding approach centered on challenges, motivating researchers from diverse backgrounds to surpass conventional limits of geography and discipline. These challenges represent persistent obstacles hindering progress in cancer research, which no single scientist, institution, or country can tackle in isolation.

The Cancer Grand Challenges community has grown to more than 1,800 investigators and collaborators with 21 teams from across the world taking on 18 challenges.

About Cancer Grand Challenges

Co-founded in 2020 by two of the largest funders of cancer research in the world: Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute, Cancer Grand Challenges supports a global community of interdisciplinary, world-class research teams to come together, think differently and take on some of cancer’s toughest challenges. These are the obstacles that continue to impede progress, and no one scientist, institution, or country will be able to solve them alone. With awards of up to £20M, Cancer Grand Challenges teams are empowered to rise above the traditional boundaries of geography and discipline to make the progress against cancer we urgently need.

About Cancer Research UK

• Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research, influence and information.
• Cancer Research UK’s pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.
• Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last 50 years.
• Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK wants to accelerate progress and see 3 in 4 people surviving their cancer by 2034.
• Cancer Research UK supports research into the prevention and treatment of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.
• Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK is working towards a world where people can live longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.

For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

About the National Cancer Institute

• The US National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the United States government's principal agency for cancer research and training. Established under the National Cancer Institute Act of 1937, NCI is part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of 11 agencies that make up the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
• As the largest funder of cancer research in the world, NCI manages a broad range of research, training, and information dissemination activities to improve cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, and survivorship.
• In addition, NCI supports 73 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers in major cities across the United States and more than 5,000 grantees and partners with industry, private philanthropic organizations, other federal agencies, and other national and foreign institutions to engage in cancer research and training opportunities that otherwise might not be possible because of their complexity and cost.