Dr Sarah Burge is Director of Clinical Integration at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She plays a central role in the development of the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and in this article she explains the need to shape a new model of care where research and clinical practice are tightly interwoven.
The UK has one of the highest cancer mortality rates among developed countries with around 50% of cancer patients dying of their disease, lagging behind the progress made in Europe and the OECD. Meanwhile, the incidence and healthcare costs of cancer will triple over the next 25 years. We urgently need a radical solution to tackle the cancer crisis, and here in Cambridge we believe we have it.
The Cambridge Biomedical Campus is the largest centre of medical research and healthcare in Europe. It is changing how we diagnose and treat cancer, saving lives, and creating a sustainable NHS for the future. The campus brings together numerous leading healthcare and research organisations in one location and is a major driver of economic growth (opens in a new tab) — for every £10 generated, an additional £10 is contributed to the UK economy.
Ground-breaking cancer research at Addenbrooke’s Hospital has already achieved so much due to close partnerships with the University of Cambridge and industry partners. This impressive track record of discovery and innovation includes the ‘pill on a string’ early oesophageal cancer test, AI radiotherapy technology that is cutting waiting times, personalised whole genome breast cancer treatment, and a new revolutionary approach to treating aggressive, inherited breast cancers.
I’m currently leading on research and clinical integration for the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital. I work closely with NHS teams, academic collaborators, and industry partners, to ensure new innovations in cancer diagnostics and AI are brought from the lab to the bedside efficiently and ethically.
By bringing together scientists, clinical researchers, and doctors under one roof in a new NHS hospital, the planned Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will combine clinical expertise from Addenbrooke’s Hospital with cutting-edge research from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre and the University of Cambridge.
This collaboration enables integrated ways of working which will become routine for all staff, from administrative support to nursing care, to pathology, to surgical intervention. It is the future of the NHS. And it is what we are doing in Cambridge already.
Integrating clinical care and scientific research to treat cancer
By working together across different disciplines, we are breaking down barriers between the laboratory and the clinic, enabling patients to benefit from the latest innovations in cancer science.
There are many benefits to integrating clinical care and scientific research in cancer care including:
- Detecting cancer months or years earlier, saving lives and avoiding the need for expensive, invasive and intensive surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
- Using real-time data from patients receiving treatment, combined with whole genome sequencing and AI technology to determine the right treatment for each individual.
- Supporting rapid and effective uptake of innovation across the whole pathway from primary care to hospital care, breaking down traditional boundaries, moving care closer to home and into the community.
- Building the UK’s status as an innovative, science superpower and making us a healthier, wealthier nation.
Finding solutions to medical problems
Integration of research and innovation with clinical care is not just about sharing physical space. It enables people to think ‘outside of the box’ to find solutions to medical problems.
Clinicians from Addenbrooke’s Hospital worked with the business arm of the University of Cambridge to develop the CamPROBE®. The device makes collecting biopsies for prostate cancer safer and more comfortable. The team developed the device to reduce the risk of infection and distribute local anaesthetics during the procedure, meaning it is less painful than other methods.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. Early detection through accurate and accessible sampling and diagnostics is critical to ensure more men get treatment sooner. The simple, cost-effective design and ergonomic functionality of CamPROBE® represent a step-change in prostate biopsies. It is now more widely available in the UK due to a successful commercial partnership.
The DIRECT clinical trial, jointly funded by AstraZeneca and the CRUK Cambridge Centre, has established a robust pipeline to identify those patients with high-grade B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) most suitable for experimental therapies based upon their genomic subtype, alongside their response to first-line therapy. This has been achieved by integrating data and samples collected from patients having standard of care treatment for high-grade B cell lymphoma.
Cambridge is also benefitting from a new scheme, allowing cancer patients to access clinical trials at hospitals closer to home. The ‘Just in Time’ scheme run by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), could reduce the time needed to set up a clinical trial from months to only days. For the first time, the scheme is being piloted in the PemOla trial, led by Addenbrooke’s clinicians and University of Cambridge researchers. The precision medicine study explores using combination immunotherapy to treat pancreatic cancers that have many genetic changes. This approach could dramatically increase the development of precision medicine by speeding up clinical trials and making them a routine part of patient care.
Summary
Innovation happens when people think differently. Nowhere else in the world can call on resources at this scale to change the story of cancer: a University with more Nobel Prizes than any other in the world, one of the UK’s biggest cancer research communities, Europe’s largest life sciences cluster, and the world’s largest single point-of-care health system.
I’m so excited about the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital — it will move us rapidly towards a world where we can prevent and cure cancer.
Dr Sarah Burge
The brilliant community of chemists, biologists, engineers, mathematicians, academic and clinical scientists, doctors and nurses, patients and industry partners working together under one roof will deliver breakthroughs at a speed not seen before.
But it’s not just the innovations that will extend beyond its walls. With the largest clinical academic training programme in the UK, Cambridge will train the future pioneers who will work in Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital, enabling them to spread their expertise to other parts of the UK and the world.
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