The Movember Foundation and Prostate Cancer UK announce the launch of this country’s first ever Centres of Excellence programme in prostate cancer research.
The world-class Movember Centres of Excellence Programme in partnership with Prostate Cancer UK will see an injection of £10 million over a five year period – the largest single investment in to the disease by the partnership to date. The aim is to accelerate understanding of the disease through innovation, ensuring lab breakthroughs are translated into clinical benefits for men as quickly as possible.
The two Centres will focus on the burning questions in prostate cancer
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Understanding risk
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Distinguishing aggressive from non-aggressive disease
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Developing better treatments for men with advanced tumours.
These research ‘hubs’ will see outstanding teams of internationally recognised scientists from across different disciplines and with expert knowledge of other tumour types, working collaboratively to deliver answers. Although each Centre will have a distinct focus, both will have the overall aim of delivering personalised treatment for men.
Movember UK Country Manager Sarah Coghlan said: “Launching the Movember Centres of Excellence is one of the most significant and exciting milestones in the Movember Foundation’s history to date. We salute every one of the Mo Bros and Mo Sistas in the UK. This wouldn’t be possible without them.”
Dr Iain Frame, Director of Research at Prostate Cancer UK said: “It is staggering to consider what we still don’t know about prostate cancer today, despite it being the most common cancer in men.”
The Belfast-Manchester Centre will focus on improving the odds for men with advanced prostate cancer. Researchers at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, based at The University of Manchester, will work with clinicians and researchers at the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology at Queen’s University Belfast. They will work on identifying men at high risk of developing aggressive tumours and refining new and existing treatments to improve their efficacy for advanced prostate cancer.
Professor Richard Marais, Director of the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute based at The University of Manchester, will be one of two Scientific Co-Directors of the Centre, alongside Professor David Waugh based at Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Richard Marais said: “This is very exciting for the future of prostate cancer research. We have established a unique collaboration and, by working in partnership we also hope to increase the speed at which lab break throughs reach the man in the clinic and have a direct impact on patient outcomes.”
The aim of the London Centre of Excellence will be to identify the genetic basis of prostate cancers and use that as the basis for individualised treatment. Researchers at the Centre will form a united front against prostate cancer. A particular emphasis will be the search for gene signatures that can be used to identify men at high risk of aggressive disease and to optimise treatment choices based on each man’s genetic information.
Professor Johann de Bono, Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust said: “This is an incredible opportunity to work with an outstanding group of like- minded colleagues which could have a major impact on men suffering from this common disease. We envision that by working together, we can and will defeat prostate cancer.”
