24.10.13
£35m boost for cancer imaging
Four cancer imaging centres are to benefit from £35m investment, Cancer Research UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have announced.
The funding will run for five years and help to develop new imaging techniques and applications to help clinicians learn about how tumours feed and grow, how cancer cells signal to one another, tumour blood supply, the environment surrounding tumours, and genetic and molecular signatures.
The centres use a variety of techniques and technologies including optical microscopy, MRI, ultrasound and PET.
Imaging centres that are to be funded are a combined centre in Manchester and Cambridge; Oxford; King’s College London and UCL; and the Institute of Cancer Research in London.
Dr Iain Foulkes, Cancer Research UK’s executive director of strategy and research funding, said: “Imaging is an invaluable tool in the fight against cancer. Being able to see what’s happening inside a patient is vitally important in understanding how treatments are working and the best ways to improve them.
“This investment will help drive major improvements for cancer patients in the future. Research is unlocking cancer’s secrets and our ability to see what is going on with cancers is essential to better diagnose, monitor and treat cancer patients.”
Professor David Delpy, chief executive of the EPSRC, said: “This large investment is great news and builds upon our previous successful collaboration with Cancer Research UK. These centres will bring together many of the UK’s leading scientists, engineers and clinicians interested in all aspects of imaging research, speeding up advances in new technologies and ensuring these are applied rapidly for the benefit of patients.”
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Image c. UCL/KCL CMIC