Cancer Research UK and partners have committed £5.5 ($7.1) million in funding to form a world-leading research team tasked with making personalised medicine a reality for people with bowel cancer. 

The CRC-STARS initiative will bring together over 40 research experts from across the UK, Spain, Italy and Belgium to find kinder, better treatments for the disease, which kills 16,800 people in the UK every year.  

Joining forces will enable them to use their combined expertise across multiple research areas, and pair clinical trial data with cutting-edge technology. 

Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, Michelle Mitchell, said: “For over 100 years, Cancer Research UK-funded scientists have been working to beat bowel cancer, and this project is one of the most comprehensive for bowel cancer that we have ever supported. 

“Together with our funding partners – the Bowelbabe Fund, Bjorn and Inger Saven and the FCAECC – we can empower the CRC-STARS team to speed up the development of personalised treatment for people living with bowel cancer, bringing us closer to a world where people live longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.” 

Personalised bowel cancer therapy

The CRC-STARS team will be co-led by Professor Owen Sansom (Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute), Professor Jenny Seligmann (University of Leeds) and Professor Simon Leedham (University of Oxford).  

The team of researchers will build on the tools, resources and discoveries developed by existing bowel cancer research collaborations (e.g. ACRCelerate) and Cancer Research UK’s National Biomarker Centre.  

They will also analyse data from Cancer Research UK-supported colorectal cancer studies such as the FOxTROT, TREC and PRIME-RT clinical trials. 

The researchers will work together to learn even more about how bowel cancer behaves so that it can potentially be treated in a more personalised way in the future. 

CRC-STARS is jointly funded by Cancer Research UK (£2m), the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK (£2m), philanthropic support from Bjorn Saven CBE and Inger Saven (£1m), and the Scientific Foundation of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (FCAECC, €600,000 [~£500,000]).

Director of the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute and CRC-STARS research co-lead, Professor Owen Sansom, commented: “Step by step, day by day, we’re discovering new ways to prevent, detect and treat bowel cancer and save lives. The support we’ve received from our funders will allow us to take bold steps towards better understanding bowel cancer and how to beat it.” 

Diana Spencer, Senior Digital Content Editor, DDW