Scientists changing tack in battle to cure cancer

Research centre would focus on ways to combat disease’s resilience

The world’s first drugs aimed at stopping cancer cells becoming resistant to treatment could be available within the next decade, scientists have said.

Such medicines could help cancer patients live longer and better quality lives by making the condition manageable and “more often curable”, those behind a new centre dedicated to tackling the problem said.

The Institute for Cancer Research’s (ICR) chief executive Professor Paul Workman said drug resistance is the toughest challenge faced by those working against the disease.

He described a new research centre focusing on developing ways to get ahead of cancer’s lethal so-called “Darwinian” ability to evolve and become resistant as a “really exciting new development”.

The ICR is investing £75 million in a new Centre for Drug Discovery at its Sutton campus, and is appealing for a further £15 million to finish the project which it said will bring together almost 300 scientists from various fields to work together.

Existing treatments including chemotherapy sometimes fail because the deadliest cancer cells manage to adapt and survive, researchers said, prompting them to take a different tack.

Prof Workman said: “Cancer’s ability to adapt, evolve and become drug resistant is the cause of the vast majority of deaths from the disease and the biggest challenge we face in overcoming it. At the ICR, we are changing the entire way we think about cancer, to focus on understanding, anticipating and overcoming cancer evolution.

“If we can raise a further £15m to deliver our new Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery, we can bring together under one roof experts in cancer therapeutics alongside others studying evolution in animals, cells and individual patients, to create a new generation of cancer treatments.”

Scientists aim to use new approaches including multi-drug combination treatments and artificial intelligence to “herd” cancer cells together.

Dr Andrea Sottoriva, who will be deputy director of cancer evolution in the new centre, said: “Artificial intelligence and mathematical predictive methods have huge potential to get inside cancer’s head and predict what it is going to do next and how it will respond to new treatments.”