SU2C/CRUK Prevention, Early Stage Detection and Interception of Recurrence Challenge

Funding over a maximum of four years for collaborative, multi-institution US/UK research teams conducting translational research to generate and evaluate new approaches to prevent and intercept cancer recurrence.

Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) and Cancer Research UK (CRUK) are co-funding the Prevention, Early Stage Detection, and Interception of Recurrence Challenge to fund UK/US multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research teams conducting translational research to generate and evaluate new approaches to prevent and intercept cancer recurrence.

The overall objective of the challenge fund is to combine complementary expertise, resources and infrastructure from US and UK research institutions to develop innovative solutions to intercept the pathways and mechanisms that lead to development of cancer recurrence as well as new, second primary cancers.

This funding call invites proposals for up to $4m over four years that primarily aim to design, validate, and test innovative interventions to prevent cancer recurrence or to detect and intercept early-stage recurrent cancers at the earliest actionable timepoints.

Interventions should be in patient populations previously treated for a first primary tumour with curative intent, and with no detectable residual disease.

Research should have a translational focus, at the pre-clinical stage or later, have a clear path to evaluation of an interception/preventive intervention, and a patient-centric approach, with the ultimate aim to develop new and impactful clinical interventions.

Interventions can either address the risk of residual disease or specific risk factors giving rise to new cancers. Interventions could include but are not limited to:

• Novel or repurposed cancer vaccines to prevent recurrence.
• Novel or repurposed immunotherapies, pharmacotherapies, or biologics to prevent recurrence.
• Other therapies targeting mechanisms driving recurrence, including lifestyle interventions targeting specific risk/pre-cancer mechanisms in defined populations.
• Combinations of novel or standard-of-care early detection approaches with novel or standard-of-care interventions intended to prevent recurrence, where the novelty arises from the combination of the detection and intervention.

The project must aim to deliver interventions to patients in a clinical research study within two years of the study commencing. Where studies are focused on the earlier stages of clinical development, where later-stage trials and/or implementation of a final intervention is outside the scope of the study timeframe and budget, a clear line of sight to the steps required for intended implementation should be articulated.

Proposals may optionally include one or more additional objectives during the course of developing/validating/evaluating their preventive intervention, including:

• Identify and validate biomarkers and early indicators associated with cancer recurrence, in order to guide preventative interventions.
• Develop and validate novel technologies and methodologies for detecting minimal residual disease (MRD) and precancerous lesions that precede progression to confirmed early-stage cancer diagnosis.
• Develop predictive models and tools that enable personalised monitoring and prevention strategies for high-risk patients.
• Increase understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying cancer recurrence to inform early-stage detection and interception strategies.