News

Last week, The Farr Institute hosted a research frontiers meeting with some of the country’s leading experts in cancer from across government, NHS, academia, industry, patient groups and the charitable sector. Held on 9th December at Senate House, London, the meeting focussed on opportunities to advance cancer research through cross-sector collaboration by maximising data assets, demonstrating good governance and creating, indexing, and disseminating new methods, tools, and training materials for researchers. The delegation met to consider how harnessing UK data could create a world-leading cancer intelligence system to maximise the impact of research and improve the lives of patients across UK’s population.

John Baron MP, Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer, delivered a Welcome Address to attendees, setting the scene for the day’s discussions and highlighting the UK’s capability to lead the way in cancer informatics on a global scale. He placed emphasis on data being essential for improving existing survival outcomes, treatments and quality of life for cancer patients.

The Farr Institute can act as an enabler, providing a bridge into computer science and methodology and the breadth of research experience contained within its 26Institutions brings insights and best practice from other clinical areas.
– Professor Andrew Morris, Co-Director, The Farr Institute

As well as some of the UK’s leading universities, attendees included:

• The Farr Institute
• Cancer Research UK
• National Cancer Research Institute Consumer Forum
• Public Health England
• Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, Queens University Belfast
• Scottish Cancer Registry
• Welsh Cancer Intelligence & Surveillance
• NHS England
• London Cancer
• Department of Health
• The Francis Crick Institute
• National Cancer Intelligence Network

As the ultimate aim is to improve patient outcomes, the meeting was strongly supported by representatives of patients and public groups who added their voice to the discussions and encouraged the ethical sharing of data to improve cancer care for themselves and future generations.

The delegation will now reflect upon the challenges, issues and necessary actions raised at the meeting with a focus on health informatics-driven projects that have the potential to be implemented within a three month period. Working groups will convene to lead the highest priority projects and to explore the application of proposals that were generated through discussions on the day.