Advancing cancer research: innovations, challenges, future directions

Cancer research is changing fast, increasingly driven by research innovations such as precision medicine, immunotherapy, AI, and closer links between discovery science and patient care. But what challenges face oncology today, and what are the next steps for researchers?

Professor Steven Clifford, Director of Newcastle University’s Centre for Cancer, writes about how the Centre is advancing cancer research, tackling today’s challenges, and shaping the future of diagnosis, clinical trials, and personalised treatment.

How Newcastle University’s Centre for Cancer is leading on cancer research and clinical advances

From cell biology and clinical trials to healthcare research and cancer research training, our Centre for Cancer works right across the cancer research pathway to advance cancer diagnosis and treatment worldwide.

Our main goals are to transform research into real-world clinical advances that improve the lives of people everywhere, while developing teams primed to undertake world-leading discovery research. The Centre has an international track record in developing and testing new treatments, helping to take innovative ideas from the lab to patients faster than ever before.

We know that innovation requires partnerships, and so for over 40 years, we’ve collaborated with some of the most brilliant minds from a range of multidisciplinary international, industrial, and clinical partners based around the world. The Centre brings together expertise from across translational research and personalised medicine, including target and biomarker discovery, new cancer drug discovery, diagnostics, early and late-phase clinical trials, cancer prevention and screening, and education.

Since 2009, we’ve collaborated with Cancer Research UK, Children's Cancer North, the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, and The Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to establish the Cancer Research UK Newcastle Cancer Centre, to provide the people of the North East of England with access to the most cutting-edge cancer treatments and information.

The Newcastle Drug Discovery Group is an academic laboratory that works closely with industry partners to find new treatments for cancer patients. The group, made up of world-class academics, has built a portfolio to rival many biotech companies, helping to discover two approved cancer treatments, sending two more into the clinic, with yet more in the discovery phase.

The Group formed in 1990 with funding from what would later become Cancer Research UK. A year later, Newcastle University signed its first technology transfer agreement with the charity, making it Cancer Research UK’s longest-running academic partnership.

Two researchers based at the Newcastle University Centre for Cancer. Photo credit: John Donohue

What is cancer?

Cancer is not a single disease, but a collective term for many related conditions that arise when normal cells acquire changes that disrupt how they grow, divide, repair, or die. These changes are driven by alterations in DNA, which can be inherited, acquired over time, or triggered by environmental and lifestyle factors.

When these altered cells evade the body’s usual control mechanisms, they can grow uncontrollably, invade surrounding tissues, and spread to other parts of the body.

This dynamism and ability to adapt is what makes cancer such a complex scientific and clinical challenge, and why effective therapies developed at one point in time, may become less effective as cancers mutate. Modern research therefore spans molecular biology, genomics, immunology, data science, and population health.

As researchers uncover new molecular subtypes of cancer, it is becoming increasingly clear that cancers which look similar under the microscope can behave very differently at a biological level. Therefore, only by integrating these research perspectives can we fully understand how cancers emerge, progress, and respond to treatment.

What are the latest cancer research innovations?

Cancer is an ever-expanding field, and as technology and our knowledge of new subtypes grows, more opportunities for innovation arise.

In the last five years, one new area of research we see expanding is cellular therapy. Here, instead of treating with drugs, research goes into finding ways to promote our own immune system to fight cancer.

Research into developing vaccines tailored to specific cancers and training immune systems to detect and destroy cancer cells is also underway, as is utilising biopsies from blood or bodily fluid (liquid biopsies) to earlier detect minimal residual disease (MRD) after surgery and track tumour DNA.

But on their own, cancer research breakthroughs only go so far without effective, personalised matching with patients. The tailoring of oncology treatment is what we call precision medicine, and personalised medicine is the tailoring of oncology treatment for each patient.

What does the future of personalised medicine mean for the future of oncology?

Personalised medicine is transforming cancer treatment, and over the next decade or so, its impact will be profound.

Historically, patients used to be treated in groups. But now, oncologists understand that cancer isn’t a one-size-fits-all disease.

Today, clinicians can make detailed assessments of hundreds of different cancer types and this is becoming ever more sophisticated and wide-ranging. It’s all about finding the optimised treatment for each patient based on the individual biological and genetic features driving the cancer, specific prognoses and predictions for therapy outcomes, and whether new drugs and treatments are in development. This future will include:

• molecularly-targeted therapy pathways
• risk-based screening
• real-time disease monitoring through liquid biopsies and wearable technology
• precision prevention for high-risk individuals
  

Personalised medicine is not only about improving treatment efficacy — it’s about reducing toxicity, sparing patients from ineffective therapies, and designing treatment journeys that focus on the individual. In terms of low-risk childhood cancers that still require long-term therapies, this might include offering treatments that are gentler to improve quality of life and reduce long term side-effects.

At Newcastle, we’re involved in all parts of this pathway, right through from the point of discovery, the development of new drugs, to taking treatments into the clinic. Newcastle discoveries have changed how we diagnose, treat and manage cancer around the world, the outcomes of which feed back to the teams and further progress their research into new therapies. Our work in childhood brain tumours and leukaemia are examples of how our disease group discoveries have changed how diseases are understood and treatment is issued globally.

Researchers at work at the Newcastle University Centre for Cancer. Photo credit: John Donohue

How will artificial intelligence (AI) change cancer diagnosis?

AI is everywhere now, not least in healthcare. And while humans are the core of innovative thinking, AI does have an important role in cancer research.

AI systems are now helping to detect early signs of cancer within imaging and pathology, analyse complex genomic data at scale, stratify patients by risk and likely treatment response, and even streamline clinical pathways for faster diagnosis. In recent years, Newcastle led a successful trial using AI in colonoscopies to spot abnormalities that could potentially lead to bowel cancer. Furthermore, a newly developed AI, named DeepMerkel, can determine the course and severity of aggressive skin cancers, leading to truly personalised treatment plans.

But many years of clinical trials, studies, papers, and more have left researchers with a world of data to explore. AI and Large Language Models (LLM) allow for immeasurable efficiency when it comes to grouping, recalling, identifying patterns, predicting outcomes, and contextualising complicated datasets. While AI has the capacity to bring about huge benefits to cancer patients, here at Newcastle, we’re been using similar techniques over the last 15 years. We have access to huge datasets, exploring more than 20,000 genes in the genome across thousands of patients. Analysts driving machine learning to see patterns in the data has been at the heart of many discoveries in cancer diagnosis. An example of this is our work in childhood medulloblastoma, which utilised AI and machine learning to define new disease groups, all of which have now been adopted into diagnostics and treatments worldwide. This work was happening long before AI was being discussed in the way it is today.

What’s interesting, is that while AI is providing answers, it’s still researchers, analysts, and scientists who’re needed to understand what the answers mean for patients and oncology care. Transforming medicine through data is what Newcastle knows best, and we live and breathe the fact that best outcomes come from combining computational insight with clinical expertise.

What are the current challenges facing cancer research?

As researchers discover more subtypes of cancer, there will always be new challenges in understanding them, predicting them, and treating them. Alongside this scientific complexity sits the challenge of health inequalities. Where people live, their socioeconomic circumstances, and their access to screening, diagnosis, and specialist care can all significantly influence cancer outcomes. Tackling these disparities is a critical part of advancing cancer research and ensuring innovations benefit everyone, not just a few.

But this alone isn’t the main challenge.

As our cancer research datasets grow, our knowledge of new cancers expands, and an ageing population and environmental stressors continue to contribute to an increasing demand for treatment. Funding will always be needed to work to the right levels, and directed to the right areas.

How close are we to finding the cure for cancer?

There is no single cure for cancer because there is no single cancer. Instead, we are making progress cancer by cancer, subtype by subtype. And new distinct subtypes are being discovered all the time, each with their own causes, genetic mutations, and behaviours.

While we aren’t seeking one cure, for many cancer types, outcomes today would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. Oncology research is making huge strides in survival rates, particularly in childhood cancers, mainly due to earlier detection, wider treatment options, and personalised medicine. Recent studies also look into how some cancer cases might be preventable if people adopt healthier lifestyles.

The future of cancer care will rely on prevention, early diagnosis, precision treatment, and long-term survivorship support. In many cancers, cure is already achievable. And an alternative goal, if all can’t be cured, is to perhaps transform cancer into a more manageable long-term condition. But researchers must assess each cancer individually according to its biological make-up, and redouble efforts to address them all.

Professor Steven Clifford, Director of Newcastle University’s Centre for Cancer. Photo credit: Chris Bishop

Future directions and research priorities in cancer research

At Newcastle, our priorities align with the global challenges facing oncology today, and include:

• furthering personalised medicine that puts individual patients at the heart of their treatment
• advancing liquid biopsy technologies for early detection
• expanding immunotherapy and targeted therapy discovery
• harnessing AI for diagnostics and prognostics
• strengthening childhood cancer research, especially brain tumour biology
• building further international partnerships and bringing new viewpoints to our multi-disciplinary teams, from PhD students to world-leaders in oncology research

From championing multi-disciplinary collaboration and investing in mentorship and skills-building, to designing research with clinical relevance and strengthening engagement with patients and communities – the future of cancer research is in working together. Specialists, researchers, clinicians, and patients.

You might also like:

• from clinical trials to healthcare research, explore the work of Newcastle University’s Centre for Cancer and the Cancer Research UK Newcastle Cancer Centre
• find out more about the author, Professor Steve Clifford, Chair of Molecular Paediatric Oncology & Director, Newcastle University Centre for Cancer
• Discover how the Newcastle Drug Discovery Group is pioneering new therapeutics and cancer treatments
• read the blog: ‘An apple a day’ – cancer risk factors and lifestyle choices
• find out more about health inequalities in our blog: ‘Why are rural communities less likely to survive cancer?’
• discover how a new method for scanning patients is transforming research into lung disease and lung cancer
• explore our cancer research stories and research developments on our From blog