Watch the Cancer Immunotherapy video
Cancer Immunotherapy
One in three people develop cancer; one in four people will die of it.
Will you help equip the body’s natural defences to fight cancer?
The issue
Cancer has touched every family in the UK. It has a devastating impact on lives globally. Harnessing our natural immune defences has the potential to be the biggest advance in cancer treatment this century, but this has yet to be translated into successful treatments. There is an urgent need to understand how cancer defeats our immune defences and to translate these findings from the laboratory to the bedside.
Our solution
Our world-recognised scientists and clinicians have a 50-year track record of cancer immunotherapy research. They work alongside each other in the University’s Academic Unit of Clinical Oncology’s purpose-built research laboratories. This close relationship allows them to efficiently translate research findings into new medicines and immunisations.
Current research focuses on malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. We have identified how skin cancer suppresses immunity and are developing ways to stimulate the body’s immune system to overcome this. At the same time, we are translating these findings into new treatments for skin cancer, while extending our findings to other cancers including breast, pancreas, lung, ovarian, bowel and prostate.
The latest research has already underpinned two new first-in-man immunotherapy trials; a DNA-vaccine encoding an antibody for melanoma patients, and a trial in ovarian cancer where the patient’s white blood cells are taken out of the body, modified in the laboratory and re-injected to fight the cancer.
Our impact
Cancer immunotherapy offers the potential of a life-long cure with less need for conventional aggressive treatments. Through the close association between scientist, doctor and patient, our work is helping fight cancer and change lives. By developing new treatments so urgently needed today, we will leave a lasting legacy for tomorrow.
What will your Impact be?
Cancer has touched every family in the UK. Your support for Cancer Immunotherapy will help us translate our innovative research findings into new treatments, moving cancer therapy from the laboratory to the patient. With your help, our scientists and doctors can offer new hope to cancer sufferers and their families.
Quotes
Dr Hester Franks, a cancer specialist in training, is supported by a Medical Research Council research grant to discover new immunotherapies for melanoma.
I am passionate about developing new therapies that will help more patients survive this disease. I strongly believe that immunotherapy will become a major treatment and am very excited to be a part of the research here in Nottingham.