Over the last five years, Can­cer Re­search UK has splashed £130 mil­lion ($172.6 mil­lion) in­to glob­al on­col­o­gy re­search through its Grand Chal­lenge ini­tia­tive. And there’s more where that came from.

The char­i­ty or­ga­ni­za­tion is join­ing forces with the US Na­tion­al Can­cer In­sti­tute for three ad­di­tion­al rounds. Re­search teams vy­ing for a cut of the fund­ing will take a shot at “chal­lenge ques­tions,” which will be post­ed in Oc­to­ber. From there, a por­tion of ap­pli­cants will re­ceive pi­lot funds to fi­nal­ize their pro­pos­als, and the best teams will be award­ed $25 mil­lion for can­cer stud­ies over the next five years.

“This new part­ner­ship lever­ages the ex­per­tise of the world’s lead­ing fun­ders of can­cer re­search in a bold ef­fort to iden­ti­fy and pur­sue in­no­v­a­tive ideas that ad­dress ma­jor chal­lenges in un­der­stand­ing can­cer,” NCI di­rec­tor Ned Sharp­less said in a state­ment. “We’re thrilled to join Can­cer Re­search UK in this unique col­lab­o­ra­tion to sup­port nov­el can­cer re­search on a glob­al scale.”

Can­cer Grand Chal­lenges funds are de­signed to give teams “the free­dom and scale to in­no­vate and car­ry out cut­ting-edge re­search.” The “chal­lenges” are de­ter­mined through a se­ries of in­ter­na­tion­al work­shops, and a pa­tient com­mit­tee weighs in through­out the process.

Teams from the 2015 Chal­lenges are cre­at­ing vir­tu­al re­al­i­ty maps of tu­mors, re­search­ing new ways to fight in­flam­ma­tion-as­so­ci­at­ed can­cer, work­ing on pre­vent­ing un­nec­es­sary breast can­cer treat­ment, and more. Sev­en teams to­tal were award­ed, in­clud­ing 73 re­search groups across nine coun­tries. So far, Can­cer Re­search UK has grant­ed two rounds of awards to those groups.

Di­nah Singer

For the re­newed Can­cer Grand Chal­lenges, the NCI and Can­cer Re­search UK will co-fund four awards in each round. A new round of chal­lenges will be an­nounced every oth­er year.

Chal­lenge ques­tions for the next round will be post­ed in Oc­to­ber. Then, teams will have un­til April 22 to sub­mit an ex­pres­sion of in­ter­est. A small num­ber of teams will be se­lect­ed in June to com­plete fi­nal ap­pli­ca­tions. In­ter­views will be con­duct­ed in De­cem­ber, and awards will be an­nounced in 2022.

“Many of the on­go­ing Grand Chal­lenge awards align with NCI re­search pri­or­i­ties, and our mis­sions over­lap in many ways,” Di­nah Singer, NCI deputy di­rec­tor for sci­en­tif­ic strat­e­gy and de­vel­op­ment, said in a state­ment. “This ini­tia­tive will ex­pand op­por­tu­ni­ties to iden­ti­fy new chal­lenges based on in­sights from the can­cer re­search com­mu­ni­ty and to fur­ther our un­der­stand­ing of can­cer. We’re look­ing for­ward to the new ideas pro­posed by cre­ative teams from around the world.”

The top career staff at the FDA have vowed not to let politics get in the way of science when looking at vaccine data this fall. But Alex Azar, who happens to be their boss’s boss, apparently won’t even give them a chance to stand in the way.

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But getting the Merck-partnered drug to the right patients remains a challenge, something the companies are hoping to change with the new data cut.

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