Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute

29/07/2026

New research published this week seeks to unravel the mechanism by which inflammatory bowel disease promotes cancer growth.

The paper in Nature from Elisa Moutin and the STORMing Cancer team, funded by Cancer Grand Challenges in 2018, presents new findings that suggest therapeutic approaches modulating the clonal composition of chronically inflamed tissue by promoting no oncogenic mutations could help prevent tumour initiation.

Read the paper here:

This study uses a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease to explore how mutations and cellular context combine to drive the transition to malignancy.

28/07/2026

With a strong interest in the power of the epigenome, Su moved into cancer research at the CI where she now works in our Mair Group.

Find out about her vital work on brain cancer in the latest episode of our Behind the Lab Coat series.

27/07/2026

New findings published in Nature could explain why some people are more susceptible to cancer than others in the same environment.

The research, an international collaboration with researchers from the University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh and others around Europe and the US, suggests why DNA damage from smoking, UV rays and other factors may cause cancer in some people but not others.

Find out more: https://www.cruk.cam.ac.uk/news/study-reveals-how-our-inherited-genes-interact-with-dna-damage-to-drive-cancer/

20/07/2026

We are seeking a Research Data Manager to join our IT and Scientific Computing team.

This is an exciting chance to create and implement data management standards helping to ensure the integrity, security, and quality of our research data. In this role, you will also assist in the joint analysis of multiple datasets from different Core Facilities and research projects across the Institute.

Find out more and apply: https://www.cruk.cam.ac.uk/vacancies/research-data-manager/

03/07/2026

Researchers from the Halim Group have discovered that cancer can "hijack" a cellular repair partnership in the pancreas to help tumours grow.

A new paper published this week in Science looks at the connection between ILC2s and fibroblasts in the pancreas and how their typical communication is impacted by the presence of cancer cells.

Read the paper: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aea5113?af=R

09/06/2026

How do our T cells become efficient cancer killers?

New research from the de la Roche Group has uncovered a previously unknown element of the Hedgehog signalling pathway that enhances T cells' ability to destroy infected and cancerous cells.

Their study shows the pathway could be tuned to make T cells more effective, opening new possibilities for immunotherapy, including CAR T-cell treatments.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s44319-026-00810-8

05/06/2026

In his role as a Senior Research Associate, computer scientist Michail helps his colleagues in the Gilbertson Group train and utilise AI models to assist their vital research.

Find out more in the latest Behind the Lab Coat.

01/06/2026

In this quick video, first author Dr Giorgia Battistoni introduces a new paper on a flexible high-throughput technology for barcoding cells.

This new method will allow scientists to map the molecular identities and functions of cells within their spatial context which is key to understanding the complex interplay within and between tissue neighbourhoods.

18/05/2026

We are delighted to announce that Dr Guiping Wang is joining us as a Junior Group Leader, starting in September 2026.

Guiping joins us from Stanford University where, as a Postdoctoral Fellow, she identified a key weakness in certain aggressive cancers and developed advanced methods to study multiple layers of gene regulation within individual cells.

At the CI the Wang Group will bridge the gap between high-resolution spatial biology and genome-wide discovery to investigate how the spatial organisation of DNA, RNAs, and proteins influences cancer cell behaviour.

Find out more in our news post: https://www.cruk.cam.ac.uk/news/dr-guiping-wang-appointed-as-a-junior-group-leader/

14/05/2026

The CI's Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian is one of three scientists who jointly received the prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research this month.

The 2026 award recognises Professor Balasubramanian and his co-recipients David Klenerman and Pascal Meyer for their pioneering work in genome sequencing technologies. This work revolutionised research in cell biology, ecology, biomedicine and forensic medicine, and has led to the creation of both new fields of research and new clinical treatments for cancer, infectious and rare diseases.

Read more: https://www.cruk.cam.ac.uk/news/shankar-balasubramanian-receives-the-princess-of-asturias-award-for-scientific-and-technical-research/