Cancer Research Wales at the BACR 2025
In June, our Research Funding Manager, Dr Peter Henley, was privileged to attend the biennial British Association for Cancer Research (BACR) in Edinburgh
The BACR was founded in 1960 and acts to bring together and support researchers from across the UK. Key to this is organising conferences and meetings where ideas can be shared, new collaborations forged, and priorities decided.
The meeting I attended was held at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and it brought together some of the best and brightest cancer researchers from around the UK.
Cutting-edge science
Over the three days of presentations and exhibitions, a huge amount of cutting-edge science was on show across five main sessions, covering: cancer genetics; the tumour microenvironment; cancer immunology; profiling and modelling tumours; novel treatment strategies. As these sessions show, there was a real variety of research being presented, however certain key themes emerged across in the presentations of several of the speakers.
The tumour microenvironment
One of these themes was the use of increasingly realistic model systems for the study of cancer. Traditionally, cancer research was conducted using cancer cells grown in the lab in isolation, but this fails to reflect the real picture in patients. In reality, tumours exist in a complex mixture of various cell types and proteins, known as the tumour microenvironment (TME), which helps to shape the behaviour of the cancer cells and affects treatment responses.
In recent years, researchers have increasingly used more complex model systems, such as organoids, which are 3-dimensional and incorporate elements of the TME to better reflect real life. What was clear from the presentations was how much these newer model systems have developed and how much more accurate the results they generate are.
Importantly, new insights into the TME are still emerging that can help to shape even better model systems for research. For example, one talk highlighted the role of nerves, an often-overlooked element of the TME – in lung cancer, the presence of activated nerves increases tumour growth and suppresses the immune system, making this an important consideration in the lab.
Limitations in reflecting the diversity of real-life patients
Another fascinating talk emphasised the limitations of current research models in reflecting the diversity of real-life patients. The work, focusing on breast cancer, found significant differences in the TME between women of white and black ethnicities, particularly in the immune system’s response to the cancer. It stands to reason that similar differences will exist in a variety of cancer types, so awareness of this needs to be incorporated into future research design.
Another key theme was the recognition and exploitation of specific vulnerabilities in cancer cells as new treatment options. Facilitated by our ability to investigate cancer genetics in greater detail than ever before, new concepts for targeted therapies have been uncovered.
Synthetic lethality
One of these concepts is ‘synthetic lethality’. Many proteins in healthy cells are redundant, meaning their function can be carried out by another protein if the original one is missing. However, cancer cells often rely on a single protein because its redundancy partner has been lost due to mutations – if we can use a drug to block the remaining protein, the cancer cell will die while healthy cells will be unaffected. ‘Synthetic lethality’ can even be created manually, using two drugs that work together.
Blocking signals to cancers
A novel concept presented to us was ‘overactivation of oncogenic signalling’. Cancers rely on signals both inside and outside their cells to survive and grow, and many modern treatments try to block these signals. As an alternative, Professor René Bernards presented his work which takes the opposite approach – using drugs to enhance cancer signals. While it seems counterintuitive, this method causes the cancer cells huge stress which can kill them outright or make them vulnerable to other standard treatments – in effect, you can have too much of a good thing!
From a Welsh perspective, Professor Alan Parker, a Cancer Research Wales researcher at Cardiff University, presented a great talk about his group’s work on engineering viruses to attack cancer. It was fantastic to hear that the first clinical trial of this innovative treatment approach is underway and recruiting patients with 6 different cancer types.
Advancements in cancer research
The British Association for Cancer Research 65th anniversary meeting really served to highlight both how far cancer research has come and how many opportunities there still are to make even more improvements. More people survive their cancer today than ever before, but we can still achieve better outcomes for patients.
There are so many avenues being pursued to find more effective and, importantly, more targeted treatments with fewer side effects, the future looks positive for cancer patients in the coming decades. Taking the innovations that research generates and adopting them into practice quickly and equitably will be vital to delivering on this promise.
At Cancer Research Wales, we are doing all we can to ensure Welsh patients aren’t left behind.