Most people have never heard of the Institute of Cancer Research outside of either medical circles or those affected by cancer.  The Institute carries out world leading research and is at the forefront of the development of new treatments in the fight against cancer.

The Institute is one of the world’s leading cancer research organisations and is internationally renowned for the quality of its science.

 
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Main research themes:

Genetic epidemiology:
The Institute are seeking to understand how genes interact with lifestyle and environmental factors to cause cancer, contributing to our aim of discovering the causes of cancer and how to prevent it.

Molecular pathology:
The Institute are continuing to unravel the molecular basis of cancer to enable the development of better ways to diagnose the disease and to predict responses to treatment, contributing to our aim of improving cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Therapeutic development:
The Institute are focusing primarily on discovering new drug targets and developing drugs that precisely attack the molecular abnormalities which drive cancer, contributing to our aim of improving cancer therapies to save more lives.

• Medulloblastoma
• Neuroblastoma
• Glioma
• Sarcoma
• Leukaemia

Combined these cancers are responsible for 80 per cent of child cancer deaths worldwide.

Louis Chesler, one of the Paediatric Team Leaders has given a summary of his current activities within the drug development team.

The Institute of Cancer Research is focused on developing cures and new therapies for medulloblastoma and other paediatric solid tumours such as neuroblastoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma. These difficult to cure paediatric solid tumours account for a disproportionate amount of suffering and disability in children with cancer, and cure rates have not significantly increased in the last ten years. We need innovative new research approaches to solve this problem.

In my laboratory, we have developed new disease models for medulloblastoma, neuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma and will use them to discover the molecular defects that are responsible for causing these diseases. We focus on several areas of cancer research, such as stem cell biology, cancer imaging, and targeted drug development. We hope that these approaches will lead to new treatments that are more effective and less toxic in children.

The Institute of Cancer Research is a unique institution combining several critical resources necessary for this kind of work. We have combined expertise in the clinical treatment of paediatric cancers, and in basic biology, chemistry, physics and radiotherapy. All of the specialists involved in these fields collaborate closely at ICR to translate their findings into new treatments that can be used in the clinic. We hope to bring all of these resources together to develop safer and more targeted treatments for paediatric solid tumours.

Professor Andy Pearson and Dr Lou Chesler, two
key researchers from the Childhood Cancer Drug
Development programme                                 

Stergios Zacharoulis Consultant Paediatric Neuro Oncologist gives his account on why the drug development programme is so important.

      I met Christopher and his family as his oncologist early in October of 2006 under tragic circumstances, when Christopher was diagnosed with metastatic medulloblastoma. I had the extremely difficult task to explain to his parents that he was suffering from a type of brain cancer that is of unknown cause, very difficult to treat and that the minority of patients who survive unfortunately go through very intense chemotherapy , including high doses of chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation in order to avoid the severe potential sequalae of the brain and spine irradiation at this young age.

Despite the very sad news Christopher and his parents confronted this tragic reality with exceptional strength and positive attitude. Christopher suffered hair loss , numerous bacterial infections, mouth sores , difficulty walking , multiple hospitalisations ,as a result of his tumour and the treatment, without  ever complaining. He would always come to the clinic with his parents shy but smiling. His favourite part during the physical exam was when I was asking him to “squeeze my hands as much as he could”. He also enjoyed very much showing how he was making progress with his attempts to walk.

We were delighted to see the tumour responding initially very well. One year from his diagnosis despite the initial improvement and after completing very successfully a very intense chemotherapy regimen, Christopher was found to have relapsed. We had to have extremely difficult discussions given the extremely poor prognosis even with the use of radiotherapy and its associated potential serious neurocognitive side effects. After exploring all the possible options including experimental therapies we elected a regimen which would potentially provide some good quality of life and at the same time maintain some hope  based on the parents ideas and wishes who were an essential  part of the treatment team. Despite the initial response again, Christopher’s medullobalstoma eventually, very sadly took his life away a few days before his sixth birthday.
 

I will always remember Christopher as a child who despite all this suffering was not giving up his smile and his personal fight against cancer.  More importantly his tragic loss inspires us to carry on our research to improve the treatments for this disease.  New less toxic therapies are desperately needed for patients with metastatic and relapsed medulloblastoma based on better understanding of the biology of the disease. Our projects are focusing on incorporating drugs that interrupt the cross talk between the medulloblastoma cells and their blood vessels into medulloblastoma modern therapies. We are very thankful to Christopher’s Smile and his parents who are supporting these research efforts despite their tragic loss.

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