MRC Centre of Research Excellence (R2) funding: Molecular mechanisms to inform cancer intervention - scoping meeting

This is a great opportunity for Sheffield to bid for funding to establish an MRC Centre of Research Excellence in molecular mechanisms to inform cancer intervention: up to 14 years and up to £26.5 million (fEC for the first 7 years, after which there is a review point to release the second tranche of funding).

Prof Sarah Danson and Dr Chris Toseland, School of Medicine & Population Health, invite you to an initial meeting if you think your research could contribute to Round 2 of the MRC's call for a Centre of Research Excellence.  Even if you're not sure whether you might fit, you are welcome to come along and discuss with colleagues.  Sarah and Chris are keen to bring together people from across disciplines, divisions and faculties to discuss what a Sheffield bid for this strategically important funding opportunity could look like. Clinicians and non-clinicians are very welcome, at all career stages from postdoctoral level and above.

The research theme of most relevance to us is "molecular mechanisms to inform cancer intervention".  The call states this covers "challenges investigating the molecular mechanisms associated with tumour development, growth, metastasis and recurrence to develop a more integrated understanding of cancer biology and accelerate progress towards future development of mechanism-informed interventions".

Sarah and Chris aim to pool our ideas, helping to scope what a Sheffield bid could look like and next steps to bring it together.  Discussions may also lead to other aspects such as partners we may wish to involve, where relevant.

Lunch will be included at the start of this meeting.  This meeting will be in person on campus (room tbc).  We are aware this meeting may not be possible for all and could be too short notice for clinicians - if you are interested and cannot attend, you are encouraged to speak to Sarah s.danson@sheffield.ac.uk or Chris directly (c.toseland@sheffield.ac.uk). 

The full call is here: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/mrc-centre-of-research-excellence-round-two/

From the call wording:

"We are looking for MRC CoRE applications which use cross-disciplinary approaches to drive progress in mechanistic discovery science towards a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of dynamic cancer biology, initiation and evolution. Early detection is not expected to be a sole focus.

MRC CoRE applications should prioritise investigation of molecular mechanisms and demonstrate routes to translation that will facilitate future prevention, intervention or novel treatment development to improve cancer outcomes equitably. Applications are expected to be inclusive of multiple cancer types, or to be tumour agnostic, in order to deliver pan-cancer impact. A cancer MRC CoRE will likely prioritise cancers with unknown pathogenesis, poorer outcomes and limited treatment options."