Cancer research not on lockdown

WCRF has awarded more than £3.5 million of funding for research on how diet, nutrition, and physical activity can prevent, or help people survive, cancer.

The funding is split between 13 research projects that will be investigating a range of cancers and risk factors, including ultra-processed foods, acrylamide in diets, and food biodiversity.

Many of the grants will also look at how, on a cellular and molecular level, these factors increase or decrease the risk of cancer.

The new research grants are:

Dr Caroline Henson, University of Manchester, UK (£49,952)

Investigating the effect of pelvic radiotherapy on the intestinal microbiome and metabolome to improve the detection and management of gastrointestinal (GI) toxicity

Dr Kim Smits, Maastricht University, the Netherlands (£58,486)

Markers Of Dietary Acrylamide in Renal Cancer (MODARC)

Dr Kostas Tsilidis, Imperial College London, UK (£349,999)

Identifying mechanistic pathways linking diet to colorectal cancer

Dr Inge Huybrechts, International Agency for Research on Cancer, France (£326,320)

Food biodiversity in association with cancer risk and mortality – from metabolic pathways to environmentally sustainable public health recommendations

Dr Tanja Stocks Charles, Lund University, Sweden (£164,000)

Obesity and prostate cancer: the relevance of weight changes across the age-course and mediation by insulin resistance

Dr Sarah Lewis, University of Bristol, UK (£264,003)

Appraising causal mechanisms underpinning the link between physical activity and cancer risk

Dr Dagfinn Aune, Bjørknes University College, Norway (£350,000)

Adiposity and physical activity and the risk of 26 cancers in the UK Biobank: examining the underlying mechanisms

Prof Christopher Millett, Imperial College London, UK (£348,435)

Ultra-processed food consumption and cancer incidence and mortality: estimating current and future projected burdens in Europe considering different scenarios

Prof John Mathers, Newcastle University, UK (£283,573)

Adherence to the WCRF/AICR Cancer Prevention Recommendations and Cancer Risk and Survival in the UK

Prof Anne Tjønneland, Danish Cancer Society Research Centre, Denmark (£297,425)

Source-dependent nitrate and nitrite intake and risk of colorectal cancer, stomach cancer and bladder cancer

Assistant Prof Simone Eussen, Maastricht University, the Netherlands (£347,159)

Neuro-inflammatory metabolites of the kynurenine pathway during colorectal cancer survivorship: dietary determinants and impact on quality of life, fatigue and depression up to 5 years post-treatment

Prof Roger Milne, Cancer Council Victoria, Australia (£340,500)

Establishing dietary and body size-related risk factors for bladder cancer to inform prevention

Prof Raul Mendez, Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Spain (£349,962)

Identifying New Therapeutic Targets in Obesity-Driven Liver Cancer