Our research into personalised medicine
Personalised medicine is about matching patients with the treatments that will work best for them. It could transform the lives of cancer patients in the UK. The ultimate aim is to treat every patient as an individual, but this vision is still some way off.
No two cancers are the same. This is because the molecular characteristics of a cancer vary from one patient to the next. So, even patients with the same type of cancer will respond differently to treatment – not just cancer drugs, but often radiotherapy and surgery too. The first step towards personalised medicine is to group together patients whose cancers have similar characteristics and to treat them accordingly.
Cancer Research UK is leading the way towards an era of personalised medicine. Our research spans many areas of cancer – from hunting for faulty genes and other molecular markers to guide treatment decisions, through to developing new targeted treatments, and using the latest imaging technologies to see how patients are responding to treatment.
We’ve already made many advances that have led to more tailored treatments. You can find out more about our progress and achievements in our personalised medicine briefsheet.
To bring the vision of personalised medicine a step closer to reality, we recently launched our pioneering Stratified Medicine Programme, with our partners. Read more on our blog about how this Programme could revolutionise cancer care in the UK.
Below are some of the highlights of our current research into personalised medicine.
On this page
Brain and CNS tumours
Dr Andrew Peet
Academic Paediatrics and Child Health
University of Birmingham, Birmingham
Powerful images: scanning childhood brain tumours
Dr Andrew Peet is a doctor and researcher at the University of Birmingham. He splits his time between treating children with brain tumours and researching better ways to diagnose and monitor these cancers. His work will lead to more tailored treatment for children with cancer, helping to save even more lives.
Breast cancer
Prof Carlos Caldas
Breast cancer functional genomics
Cambridge Research Institute, Cambridge
How damaged genes can cause breast cancer
At our prestigious Cambridge Research Institute, Professor Carlos Caldas is leading a team that aims to identify some of the genes that go wrong when a woman develops breast cancer. To achieve this they are screening thousands of tissue samples.
Prof Charles Coombes
Department of Oncology
Imperial College School of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London
Improving treatment for breast cancer
Professor Charles Coombes is director of the Department of Oncology and heads the Section of Cancer Cell Biology at Hammersmith Hospital. He is an outstanding scientist and Cancer Research UK has been funding his work for over twenty years. He and his team are leading the world with their research into new treatments for breast cancer.
Prof Charles Swanton
Translational Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory
Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, London
Discovering why some breast cancers are resistant to treatment
Professor Charles Swanton is based at our London Research Institute and is finding out how some cancers become resistant to the drugs used to treat them. In particular, he is looking at why drugs known as taxanes are not always effective in women with breast cancer. Professor Swanton specialises in translational research – using his discoveries in drug resistance to develop new ways to effectively treat cancer.
Children's cancers
Dr Andrew Peet
Academic Paediatrics and Child Health
University of Birmingham, Birmingham
Powerful images: scanning childhood brain tumours
Dr Andrew Peet is a doctor and researcher at the University of Birmingham. He splits his time between treating children with brain tumours and researching better ways to diagnose and monitor these cancers. His work will lead to more tailored treatment for children with cancer, helping to save even more lives.
Leukaemia
Professor Andrew Pettitt
Department of Haematology, School of Cancer Studies
University of Liverpool, Liverpool
Improving treatment for lymphoma
Professor Andrew Pettitt is a leading expert on leukaemia and lymphoma at the University of Liverpool. He is researching ways to improve treatments for these diseases, and is part of the Liverpool Cancer Research UK Centre.
No specific cancer type
Prof Caroline Dive
Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology Group
Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, Manchester
Developing new cancer treatments
Professor Caroline Dive leads the Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology Group at the Cancer Research UK Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in Manchester. Her team carry out lab studies and early clinical research into new cancer drugs. Professor Dive also carries out important research into drug resistance in bowel cancer.
Prof Roland Wolf
Cancer Research UK Molecular Pharmacology Laboratory
University of Dundee, Dundee
How do our genes affect sensitivity to drugs and the environment?
Professor Roland Wolf directs the Biomedical Research Centre at the University of Dundee. His research focuses on families of proteins that protect our cells from carcinogens in the environment and the effects of radiation and chemotherapy.
Prof Paul Workman
Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer Therapeutics
The Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton
Developing targeted cancer treatments
Professor Paul Workman is one of the UK's leading experts in the discovery and development of new cancer drugs. He coordinates teams of chemists, biologists and pharmacologists to take new drugs through into clinical trials. He is Director of the Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer Therapeutics at The Institute of Cancer Research, which provides researchers with the very latest technologies for drug discovery.
Ovarian cancer
Dr James Brenton
Functional Genomics of Ovarian Cancer
Cambridge Research Institute, Cambridge
Finding new ways to overcome drug resistance in ovarian cancer
Dr James Brenton is based at our Cambridge Research Institute. He is studying why cancer treatments work for some people and not others even though they have the same disease. His research particularly focuses on ovarian cancer and understanding why some women respond well to existing chemotherapy drugs while others have tumours that are 'resistant' to treatment.
Prof Robert Brown
Epigenetics Team
Imperial College London and The Institute of Cancer Research, London
'Epigenetics' and the problem of drug resistance
Professor Robert Brown is currently investigating how some cancers, in particular ovarian cancers, become resistant to chemotherapy. Through this work, he is developing important new ways to overcome this huge problem of drug resistance. Professor Brown leads two research teams based at Imperial College London and The Institute of Cancer Research.
Prof Gordon Jayson
Translational Angiogenesis Laboratory
Christie Hospital NHS Trust, Manchester
New cancer treatments that block blood vessel growth
Gordon Jayson is Professor of Medical Oncology at the Christie Hospital in Manchester. His world-class research focuses on new cancer treatments that block blood vessel growth, starving tumours of essential nutrients and oxygen. Ultimately, his work is helping more women survive ovarian cancer.
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