University researchers join forces with US ‘cancer moonshot’

29 Jun 2016

Technology to revolutionise how researchers capture and analyse cancer cells

Cancer Research UK researchers based at the University and the US government’s National Cancer Institute have announced that two teams will work together to radically accelerate progress against cancer, in one of the first international collaborations inspired by US Vice-President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot.

The collaboration between the teams will develop and refine technology that will revolutionise how researchers capture and analyse cancer cells circulating in patients’ blood.

Using a super-sensitive cell-scanning device, researchers will analyse blood samples from patients with early-stage lung and bowel cancer to identify those who still have traces of cancer and so will be more likely to relapse.

This will give doctors the opportunity to rapidly start second-line treatments. In early-stage lung cancer, as many as 50 percent of patients relapse after surgery.

Monitoring this ‘minimal residual disease’ has transformed care in blood cancers like leukaemia, but techniques are not sensitive enough to monitor patients with ‘solid’ tumours.

The new technology will also allow researchers to analyse the cells they find in great detail, providing clues to the most effective therapy for each patient as their cancer re-emerges.

Professor Caroline Dive and her team at the University’s Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, who has led the world in understanding these circulating tumour cells, will be using this technology for the first time in the UK.

The US and the UK teams will build and operate identical laboratories with real-time sharing of research data and experimental procedures. Both research teams have a long track record in collaborative work across disciplines and laboratories. This will accelerate the development and testing of this technology in the clinic, getting it to patients around the world as quickly as possible.

Professor Dive said: “Although early lung cancer can be treated successfully with surgery, patients face an anxious wait after treatment, and about half eventually relapse. Our new collaboration will let us spot those likely to relapse and get in early with other treatments, improving how we care for these patients, and delivering better outcomes, faster.

The US team will focus on bowel cancer, while the UK team – who are also part of the Cancer Research UK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence – will lead the lung cancer research.

As the teams refine and develop the technology, they eventually hope to use it to detect early signs of cancer in otherwise healthy people, ultimately leading to marked improvement in survival and cure.

Cancer is one of the University’s research beacons – examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet.