Cancer Research Matters

This episode features Professor Charles Swanton. Charlie is Cancer Research UK's Chief Clinician and his lab at the Francis Crick Institute studies lung cancer tumour heterogeneity and maps the evolutionary pathways at work as cancers evolve and change.He talks about the profound changes in the way the research community thinks about lung cancer, the power of the translational mind-set and delves into the flagship project, TRACERx.He also talks briefly about his lab’s growing interest in the mechanistic links between air pollution and lung cancer in never smokers.Useful linksExplore how Cancer Research Horizons can help you translate your workhttps://www.cancerresearchhorizons.com/our-expertise/research-translationRead about Charlie’s work on air pollution and lung cancer  https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2021/12/13/its-a-fair-cop-why-our-chief-clinician-went-to-a-climate-change-summit/ScottishPower and Cancer Research UK, working together for a greener, healthier futureOur longstanding partner ScottishPower is helping us shine a light on the role air pollution plays in cancer and are covering the cost of a study called TOPICAL. ScottishPower is 100% committed to helping tackle climate change and our partnership reflects our shared interest in a greener, healthier future.

Cancer Research Matters, a new Podcast from Cancer Research UK featuring some of the incredible researchers behind cancer research. The idea is to drive and provoke conversation around cancer science, how it shapes our understanding of the disease and the challenges we face as we develop therapies. The first series focusses on the 20th anniversary of CRUK – we’ll be winding back the clock on some of the great discoveries and breakthroughs made in the past two decades and asking some leading names where they think we’ll be in another 20 years.This episode features Professor Richard Gilbertson. Richard is a paediatric oncology clinician scientist and is the Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre. He has dedicated his career to understanding childhood brain tumours and is perhaps known best for his work identifying different types of medulloblastoma and ependymoma – two of the most common kinds of childhood brain tumour. He talks about the challenges and successes of the childhood cancer research community, how he sees the future of the field and some of the incredible breakthroughs his lab has made on childhood brain cancers.  Further reading WNT signalling and brain cancer https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00401-012-0958-8 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1535610816300551 Read about CRUK’s data strategy https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2022/07/07/joining-the-dots-how-our-new-research-data-strategy-will-unlock-the-power-of-big-data/See the data strategy https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/cancer_research_uk_-_research_data_strategy.pdf

This episode features outgoing CRUK Chief Scientist, Professor Karen Vousden. Known for her work on the tumour suppressor protein, p53, she has also worked on HPV and cancer metabolism. She has been the director of the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow, UK, and from 2016 she re-located to become a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute as well as taking up the role of Chief Scientist at CRUK.She talks about the success and challenges of work around p53, her joy at being involved in the early work around HPV, the frustrations of coming so close to a huge breakthrough and how life as a researcher has changed.Further reading on Karen’s work on p53:Article Following the discovery of p53p53 is strictly controlled in the normal cell, Karen discovered that a key element in this regulation is the protein Mdm2. https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(18)30208-4/fulltextKaren’s work on oncogenes and HPV: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC402081/