Cancer imaging centres to benefit from £35million funding

According to EPSRC, this latest funding will bring together scientists, engineers and clinicians to develop new imaging techniques and applications which will help clinicians learn more about how tumours survive and grow, how cancer cells signal to one another, tumour blood supply, the environment surrounding tumours and molecular and genetic signatures.

The cancer imaging centres will serve as focal points of research using a variety of techniques, such as optical microscopy, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), functional MRI, ultrasound, and PET (positron emission tomography).

In a statement, Dr Iain Foulkes, Cancer Research UK’s executive director of strategy and research funding, said: “Imaging is an invaluable tool in the fight against cancer. Being able to see what’s happening inside a patient is vitally important in understanding how treatments are working and the best ways to improve them.”

The four imaging centres to receive funding are at: Oxford University, The Institute of Cancer Research, London, a joint imaging centre between King’s College London and University College London, and a new collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester.