CHALLENGES

Embarking upon a new era of discovery

By daring the very best to come together and think differently, we aim to make the radical progress against cancer the world urgently needs.

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Who will solve cancer’s most complex challenges?

Our nine new challenges closed for applications on 22 April 2021.

Successful teams will each receive up to £20m ($25m) to carry out team science on a global scale.

Catalysing a step change in cancer research

Every two years we work with the global research community to identify some of the most complex problems in cancer research – those which, if solved, could make the biggest difference to progress.

To pinpoint each round of challenges, we convene workshops around the world, consulting with researchers, people affected by cancer and organisations, including, in the most recent round, the Spanish Association Against Cancer (FC-AECC) and the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC). We also invite the submission of ideas online.

This rigorous process captures a breadth of ideas that are interrogated by the Cancer Grand Challenges Scientific Committee – a selection of the world’s most eminent scientists. As funding partners, Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute make the final decision on which challenges should be posed to the research community.

CHALLENGES

2021
2017
2015

CHALLENGE:

Map the molecular and cellular tumour microenvironment in order to define new targets for therapy and prognosis

Focus:

3D tumour mapping

ACTIVE TEAMS:

IMAXT, Rosetta

CHALLENGE:

Understand and reverse cachexia and declining performance status in cancer patients

Focus:

CHALLENGE:

Understand how lifestyle factors, such as obesity, cause cancer

Focus:

ACTIVE TEAMS:

STORMing Cancer

CHALLENGE:

Identify and target dormant cancer cells

Focus:

CHALLENGE:

Determine the potential benefits and risks of e-cigarette use

Focus:

CHALLENGE:

Understand the biology of ecDNA generation and action and develop approaches to target these mechanisms in cancer

Focus:

Extrachromosomal DNA

CHALLENGE:

Determine how inflammation causes cancer

Focus:

CHALLENGE:

Distinguish between lethal cancers that need treating, and non-lethal cancers that don't

Focus:

Lethal versus non-lethal cancers

ACTIVE TEAMS:

PRECISION

CHALLENGE:

Systemically deliver macromolecules to intracellular targets for therapeutic benefit in cancer

Focus:

CHALLENGE:

Understand how microbes inside our bodies affect cancer treatment

Focus:

ACTIVE TEAMS:

OPTIMISTICC

CHALLENGE:

Understand how cells and tissues maintain “normal” phenotypes whilst harbouring oncogenic mutations and how they transition to become a tumour

Focus:

Normal phenotypes

CHALLENGE:

Understand and exploit senescence to improve cancer treatment

Focus:

CHALLENGE:

Develop novel therapies to target unique features in solid tumours in children

Focus:

Solid tumours in children

CHALLENGE:

Understand why mistakes in certain genes only cause cancer in specific parts of the body

Focus:

Tissue specificity

ACTIVE TEAMS:

SPECIFICANCER

CHALLENGE:

Discover how unusual patterns of mutation are induced by different cancer-causing events

Focus:

Unusual mutation patterns

ACTIVE TEAMS:

Mutographs

Inactive challenges

While all Cancer Grand Challenges have the potential to drive radical progress against cancer, some are not being investigated by teams. Explore these challenges here.

2017
2015

Closed and unfunded

CHALLENGE:

Get clues to detect cancer earlier from medical and non-medical information

Focus:

Artificial intelligence

CHALLENGE:

Deliver biologically active macromolecules to any and all cells in the body to effectively treat cancer

Focus:

Biological macromolecules

CHALLENGE:

Understand how some cancers come back many years after treatment

Focus:

Dormancy (2017)

CHALLENGE:

Eradicate EBV-induced cancers from the world

Focus:

Eradicate EBV cancers

CHALLENGE:

Develop vaccines to prevent non-viral cancers

Focus:

Prevention vaccines

CHALLENGE:

Develop innovative approaches to target the cancer super-controller Myc

Focus:

CHALLENGE:

Work out the best way to combine treatments

Focus:

Treatment regimens

CHALLENGE:

Create novel tumour vaccinology approaches that establish or enhance successful immune response beyond what is revealed by current checkpoint inhibitors

Focus:

Tumour vaccinology