Since our research programme began in 2012, we have invested over £1.8 million in 12 research projects.
We awarded the most recent grant of £230,000 to Professor Sadaf Ghaem-Maghami at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London. This project started in summer 2023 and is set to explore immunotherapy as a treatment option for high grade serous ovarian cancer.
Completed projects
This year also saw us sustain investment in three of our ongoing projects that have now been completed by Professor Charlie Gourley at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Iain Hagan at the University of Manchester, and Professor James Brenton at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Charlie Gourley’s project identified three subgroups of disease based around genetic changes related to components of the MAPK signalling pathway in low grade serious ovarian cancer (LGSOC). This will help to determine which patients have a greater response to trametinib. The project also identified 16 new potential treatments for LGSOC.
Professor James Brenton’s project developed a new computational tool to analyse the tumour microenvironment. They used the tool to understand the tumour microenvironment more and ended up uncovering the potential for chemotherapy to increase the level of helpful immune cells in and around tumours of people with HGSOC.
Professor Iain Hagan’s team established the principle of protein destruction as a route to target PKMYT1 and created a first generation of molecules that can be used to develop novel drugs for high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). Keep an eye out as we share more about this project in the new year.
Onward funding
Since July 2022 we have received five new reports of onward funding. This means that researchers we have worked with continue to leverage £1.04 for every pound invested by Target Ovarian Cancer – furthering the research and hopefully moving it one step closer to our goal of doubling survival of ovarian cancer by 2050.
Publications
Our researchers published four new journal articles between July 2022 and June 2023 - bringing the overall total to 16 publications since 2012, which have received over 560 citations so far. Citations are a key indicator used in research to assess the impact of a journal article. This shows that the charity’s funded research is being well used by other researchers, informing and inspiring new research globally.
Engage with our research programme
Target Ovarian Cancer also play a crucial role in supporting women with a diagnosis and their families to access information about clinical trials, as well as providing opportunities to get involved in research.
In the last twelve months, our clinical trials database had over 5,500 visitors and included information about 17 trials open for recruitment.
A way you can be directly involved with our research programme is to join our research champion community. As of June 2023, we had over 150 research champions in our network with the opportunity to engage more – from helping shape new strategies to peer reviewing applications for our research grants.
