Children's and young people's (aged 0-24) cancers are fundamentally different from adult cancers. This creates unique challenges for research and translation.
Progress is often slowed by distinct disease biology, small patient populations, high development costs and limited access to shared data, models and infrastructure. As a result, too few promising discoveries become new treatments.
As the UK's largest funder in this field, we bring together researchers, clinicians, industry partners, funders and people affected by cancer to overcome these barriers and accelerate progress for children and young people.
Get in touch with our dedicated team to discuss how you can get involved.
Contact us to learn moreTransforming outcomes for children and young people requires a different approach. Our strategy turns discoveries into impact by connecting the expertise, resources and partnerships needed to advance promising research.
Transform our understanding of the biology, drivers and origins of children's and young people's cancers to unlock new treatment opportunities.
Discover and validate the biological vulnerabilities to develop more effective, less toxic treatments for children and young people with cancer.
Provide the expertise, resources and investment needed to de-risk and advance promising therapeutic opportunities.
Build a world-class, international ecosystem of teams, infrastructure and data to accelerate translation and trials.
We’ve been accelerating progress into research for children’s and young people’s cancer for more than 50 years and we’re not stopping there. We’re continuing to invest through international programmes and partnerships. Alongside funding research, we provide access to the expertise, infrastructure and specialist capabilities needed to advance promising discoveries towards new treatments.
Our support spans the full research and translation pathway, from discovery science and therapeutic development to clinical research. By connecting people, resources and opportunities across our network of researchers, clinicians, industry partners, funders and specialist facilities, we help accelerate progress for children and young people with cancer.
Our funding supports a broad range of research related to children’s and young people’s cancers, including discovery science, data research, translation, therapeutic development and clinical trials.
VIVO Biobank is the UK’s leading research resource dedicated to storing samples and data of cancers affecting children and young people.
Hosted by the University of Cambridge and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, the centre brings together world-leading expertise, infrastructure and international collaborations to advance understanding of paediatric brain tumours and accelerate the development of new treatments.
C-Further is an international consortium launched by Cancer Research Horizons and LifeArc. It brings together researchers, clinicians, drug discovery and development scientists, industry partners, and investors with a shared commitment to creating new cancer therapeutics for children and young people.
The ECMC paediatric network brings together clinicians and translational scientists to run early-phase clinical trials for children and young people with cancer.
Discover how we can help develop your most promising projects into tools, tests and treatments for people affected by cancer. We offer full support along the translational pathway, including therapeutic discovery, clinical infrastructure and expertise in drug and technology development.
Advancing treatments for children and young people requires collaboration across the international research community. By bringing together complementary expertise, resources and funding, we can tackle challenges that no single organisation can overcome alone.
We work with charities, government funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and industry partners across the UK and internationally. Get in touch to discuss how we can work together to improve outcomes in children’s and young people with cancer.
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Together with Children with Cancer UK, we're co-funding this research programme to advance precision medicine for children and young people with blood cancers and solid tumours. This includes cancers affecting the brain, muscle and bone, which can be more difficult to access, diagnose and treat.
Cancer Grand Challenges is a global cancer research initiative that takes a bold approach to funding research - by uniting global research teams to tackle cancer’s most complex challenges. We co-fund Cancer Grand Challenges, including the teams aiming to find new ways to treat solid tumours in children and young people.
We renewed funding for two SU2C–CRUK Paediatric Cancer New Discoveries Challenge award collaborations, which will each receive a further $5m to continue their projects and bring better treatments for children and young people with cancer.
MiNK Therapeutics’ PRAME-targeted invariant NKT cell therapy programme is among the first to collaborate with C-Further. Read more from Marco Purbhoo, investigator on the programme, about their platform and what this partnership means.
A team led by David O'Connor and Sam Behjati found that refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is driven by leukaemia cells which express a key gene, ZBTB16.
Why do some childhood cancers resist treatment? Alejandra Bruna and her team of researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research are uncovering how tumour cells “play dead” and later revive without genetic changes.
We host scientific conferences, workshops, webinars and other events. Join us to hear about the latest science, present your research and network with our exceptional community.
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Explore our latest articles and podcasts for researchers, exploring issues in cancer science and how that science shapes our understanding of the disease.
Header image credit: Andrea Lampis, The Institute of Cancer Research.
