New team to develop radiotherapies that target cancer more effectively

Safer precision radiotherapies that will be able to cure more cancers with fewer side-effects will be available within five years under ambitious new plans for research and treatment at the UCL Cancer Institute and University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust. Four out of ten cancer cures currently involve radiotherapy*, and new techniques including proton beam therapy will help to make radiotherapy an even safer and more effective option for a wider range of cancer patients at UCLH. The UK government has committed £250 million to develop high energy proton beam therapy services at UCLH and Manchester, with the first UCLH patient treated during 2019. UCL and UCLH have appointed Professor Ricky Sharma, a world-leading oncologist from Oxford University specialising in radiotherapy and cancer biology, to lead the new clinical research programme alongside a team of top physicists. The Chair in Radiotherapy and supporting posts for Professor Sharma are supported by the National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre. "Radiotherapy is one of our best weapons against cancer, but it is not always used to its full potential," explains Professor Sharma, appointed Professor of Radiation Oncology at the UCL Cancer Institute and Honorary Consultant in Clinical Oncology at UCLH. "By linking up UCL's expertise in cancer biology with UCLH's precision radiotherapy, we aim to develop new treatments with better cure rates, fewer side-effects and shorter treatment times.