Personalised Cancer Prevention and Treatment

An example of the impact of this theme’s work

Over the past 20 years, the University of Leicester’s Professor of Thoracic Oncology, Dean Fennell, a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, has led on the development and improvements of treatment for mesothelioma. 

Mesothelioma is an aggressive form of cancer which develops in the lining of the lungs or abdomen, and is known to be caused by exposure to the now-outlawed industrial material, asbestos. 

It is a relatively rare disease, but a devastating one. There is no current cure for mesothelioma, with treatments seeking to extend and improve the quality of life. 

The focus of his work is to identify personalised treatment pathways for patients with relapsed mesothelioma, by identifying which patients are likely to get the greatest benefit from different types of drug therapies, using the genetics of the cancer to lend insights.  

---

More about this theme’s work

In the UK, 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer, at least 40% of which is preventable: we want to change this. We have a strong track record and growing reputation for innovation in:

• Medicines that can prevent cancer and guide cancer treatment
• Mesothelioma – a type of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos
• Rare blood cancers
• Using tumour samples from patients following surgery, called patient-derived tumour explants, and testing them with current and new treatments, including immunotherapy, to measure the response
• Measuring DNA released into blood by dying cancer cells, called circulating tumour DNA, or ctDNA, to detect cancer early and manage treatment 

We aim to help patients with or at risk of cancer live longer, healthier lives with fewer complications through new targeted treatment approaches. We are working within four key research areas to achieve this:

1. Cancer prevention: We are using our knowledge of how certain chemicals in the body work to help us predict and test which existing medicines may work in preventing different cancers including people at high-risk of developing cancer
2. Precision Medicine: To improve outcomes in cancers of unmet need and underserved communities.
3. Patient-derived tumour explant (PDE) platform: To deliver smarter design of personalised medicine and establish a UK Skills-Knowledge-Transfer hub for this technology.
4. ctDNA profiling: We are working to harness the power of ctDNA profiling as a method to detect whether a person’s cancer has returned before they have symptoms so they can get earlier access to treatment, to support personalised medicine and study why some people develop resistances to medicines.

We are building on the foundation of our NIHR-CRUK Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre to expand our research capabilities.