A world-class team of researchers assembled and led by Rutgers Cancer Institute and its Deputy Director and Chief Scientific Officer Eileen White, PhD, was awarded a $25 million Cancer Grand Challenges grant to tackle the condition of cancer cachexia. Cancer Grand Challenges is a global funding platform, co-founded by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the US, which supports a community of diverse, global teams to come together, think differently and take on some of cancer’s toughest challenges.
The CANCAN (CANcer Cachexia Action Network) team, from Rutgers Cancer Institute and joined by Weill Cornell Medicine’s Marcus DaSilva Goncalves, MD, PhD and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Tobias Janowitz, MD, PhD, will address the challenge of cancer cachexia – a debilitating wasting condition people often experience in the later stages of their cancer, accompanied by fatigue and tissue dysfunction and imparting a poor prognosis / quality of life. Despite being a major clinical problem, little is understood about the syndrome, which lacks effective therapies for people who experience it. A deep understanding of the mechanisms causing this syndrome would enable the development of novel interventions that could improve treatment response, quality of life and ultimately survival
The team unites scientists and clinicians with expertise in cancer, metabolism, neuroendocrine function, immunology and more, across multiple institutions throughout the US and the UK, aiming to build the world’s first virtual institute with a mission to solve cancer cachexia.
The CANCAN team is spread across 14 institutions across the UK and US: Rutgers Cancer Institute; Weill Cornell Medicine; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Kaiser Permanente Medical Program of Northern California; Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute; Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute; The Salk Institute for Biological Studies; University of Rochester; Harvard Medical School; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Louisiana State University; University of Cambridge; University College London; and the University of Glasgow.
CANCAN Events
CANCAN Symposium Nov.6 2022 - Nov.8 2022
In November of 2022, The CANCAN team had their annual symposium at Cold Spring Harbor, NY. The three-day event was the first meeting of highly esteemed researchers from all 14 CANCAN institutions from the United Kingdom and the U.S. The meeting featured in depth presentations and discussions about the future of Cancer Cachexia research along with nightly social events. The CANCAN Symposium will be held again at Cold Spring Harbor, NY in November of 2023.
