CRUK Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence

Transforming the UK landscape for discovery and clinical evaluation of new brain cancer therapeutics

Adult and paediatric brain cancers now account for more cancer deaths in the under 40’s than any other cancer, with adult gliomas accounting for the majority of the ~5000 cases of malignant brain tumours in the UK each year. However, scientific translation to the clinic is hampered by both a lack of a community of academic, science-minded specialist clinicians who work in neuro-oncology, and poor understanding of the key biological vulnerabilities to target therapeutically. At present, for both paediatric and adult brain cancers, there are no effective translational pipelines from basic research to clinical trials to enable evidence-led ‘smart’ clinical advances in a UK-wide network with global connections.

The Brain Cancer Centre of Excellence, a joint initiative of the University of Edinburgh (UoE) and the University College London (UCL), tackles the building of a new neuro-oncology community as a priority, with integration into our strong cancer research and training infrastructure at both UoE and the UCL. We work to establish a new translational pipeline that is built on a deeper biological understanding of brain cancer, translating biological and data-intensive health research and phenotypic-led drug discovery (in disease-relevant and predictive pre-clinical models) via a strong clinical community that is ready to perform state-of-the-art adaptive clinical studies. To fuel the pipeline, with additional funding for science in due course, we try to maximise new cross-disciplinary opportunities in data-driven innovation, imaging technologies and growing strengths in phenotypic drug discovery using patient-derived glioma cellular models.

In 5 to 10 years, we aim to have transformed the landscape across the UK for discovery, and clinical evaluation, of new brain cancer therapeutics.