Cancer Research UK

Our research strategy focuses on four key areas: Prevent, diagnose, treat and optimise.

Prevent - More than 40% of all cancers in the UK could be prevented. While we understand what the preventable risk factors are achieving large scale behavour change across the UK is a huge challenge. With the range and breadth of our research and policy activities, we will adopt a holistic approach to tackle the challenge of cancer prevention

Diagnose -  The chances of survival are increased significantly for almost all patient groups if the disease can be diagnosed and treated at an early stage. In addition, the identification and successful treatment of precancerous lesions can prevent them progressing to cancer in the first place. With the range and breadth of expertise and infrastructure in our portfolio, and our close links with the NHS, we are ideally placed to take a lead in this area.

Treat - Our approach to therapeutic innovation brings new perspectives, mechanisms and methods, grounded in an ever more detailed understanding of the biology of cancer. The UK provides an excellent environment for therapeutic innovation, with a strong clinical community, translational infrastructure and the NHS. With our portfolio of basic research and wealth of experience in therapeutic discovery and early clinical development, we are well placed to deliver this endeavour.

Optimise - We need to get the most out of new treatments that we develop and those we already have. It is likely that combination approaches will ultimately prove most effective. We will support more experimental medicine studies, through Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs) and our extensive clinical trials portfolio to realise our aspiration of making precision medicine a reality in the UK