David Crosby, Head of Prevention and Early Detection Research at Cancer Research UK, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“I’m writing with mixed emotions that as of early October, I will be leaving Cancer Research UK for a new challenge, as Chief Research Officer at Kidney Research UK. It has been a joy, an honour and a privilege to lead Cancer Research UK’s efforts in prevention and early detection (PrEDx) research for the last eight years, and to see this community go from strength to strength.
For too long PrEDx research has been underfunded and underemphasised globally, and too disconnected from the mainstream of cancer discovery and translational research.
Consequently, it’s been my pride and joy to have worked on CRUK’s ambitious new prevention and EDx research strategies, and our Early Detection Roadmap. These set out a bold new vision: to integrate mechanistic understanding with population and behavioural research in order to unlock and catalyse a new wave of precision prevention and EDx research and innovation.
In response to these, we are funding a far greater amount of ambitious, interdisciplinary PrEDx research than ever before, with the patient and public voice as an integral part of how we support the best possible PrEDx science.
We have established partnerships in PrEDx research with numerous UK and international organisations who share our philosophy and aspirations, including with the American Cancer Society on our Cancer Prevention Research Conference, with OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and Stanford University on the Early Detection of Cancer Conference and with a host of other funders to collabortaively support international and multidisciplinary PrEDx research, including Stand Up To Cancer, Medical Research Council, NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research), EPSRC, Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and many more.
We’ve launched ACED, the international Alliance for Cancer Early Detection, with a team of field leading research centres in the UK, US and EU. We launched CD3: Cancer Data-Driven Detection, bringing together a consortium of funders and a team of researchers across the UK to change how data science can inform cancer risk prediction.
All of this gives me immense optimism and excitement for the future of PrEDx research. As cancer incidence continues to rise as the population ages and health systems experience increasing strain, cancer PrEDx must be considered as a fundamental, urgent part of how we’ll beat cancer.
And beat it we will, as a community. Even if it’s one which I will now be watching from the sidelines!
I can’t wait to join the amazing team at Kidney Research UK and tackle the (also) underprioritsed and underfunded scourge of kidney disease. But a little piece of my heart will always be CRUK and PrEDx!
All the very best for the future of cancer PrEDx, David
p.s. if you fancy my job (and it couldn’t be a better one!), apply here.”
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