Previous Successful Pump-Priming Awards

The Cambridge Cancer Centre provides pump-priming funds for novel, one year, collaborative cancer-related research projects that involve at least two or more departments or institutes in Cambridge.  In the last few years, 10 projects from researchers spanning 13 different departments or institutes have been granted funding.  

Funded in 2009 

• Elucidation of extracellular topographical factors that regulate the positioning of the mitotic spindle during human cell division – Athene Donald (Department of Physics) and Viji Draviam (Department of Genetics)  
• A BAC transgenic mouse for bioluminescent imaging of the immunosuppressive, tumoural stromal cell that expresses fibroblast activation protein-a(FAP) – Douglas Fearon (Department of Medicine) and Kevin Brindle (Department of Biochemistry and Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute) 
• Reactivating missense mutants of tumour suppressor p16INK4a using structure-stabilising small molecules – Laura Itzhaki (MRC Cancer Cell Unit), Ernest Laue (Department of Biochemistry) and David Spring (Department of Chemistry) 
• MicroRNA profiling of minimal residual disease in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia – Elena Vigorito (Babraham Institute), George Follows (Department of Haematology) and Eric Miska (Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute and Department of Biochemistry) 
• Does constitutively active Jak2 perturb mammary gland development and lead to cancer? – Christine Watson (Department of Pathology), Tony Green (Department of Haematology) and Walid Khaled (Department of Pathology) 

Funded in 2008 

• Genome-wide analysis of transcriptional reprogramming in acute myeloid leukaemia – Bertie Gottgens (Department of Haematology), Brian Huntly (Department of Haematology), Andrew Bannister (Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute) and Gos Micklem (Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics).  Project completed in March 2009.  
• Engineering the effect of cellular shape and substrate topology on epidermal stem cell differentiation – Wilhelm Huck (Department of Chemistry) and Fiona Watt (Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research and Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute)   
• Investigating the use of cell elasticity as a marker of susceptibility to cancer – Kerstin Meyer (Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute) and Jochen Guck (Department of Physics)   
• MicroRNAs as therapeutic targets in cancer - a small molecule approach – Eric Miska (Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute), Shankar Balasubramanian (Department of Chemistry), Carlos Caldas (Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute) and Simon Tavaré (Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute)   
• Devising new approaches to allosteric inhibition of the Polo-like kinase Plk1 – Ashok Venkitaraman (MRC Cancer Cell Unit) and Chris Abell (Department of Chemistry)    

Posted on Thursday 1 September, 2011