Our Research Strategy
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Centres of ExcellenceGrow Capacity
We currently support four Centres of Excellence, and have an ambition to fund seven Centres in the UK.
By building teams of collaborative researchers within the academic and medical communities, our Centres of Excellence facilitate the development of long-term strategic research plans to explore promising new avenues.
As the critical mass of high-quality scientists builds, our Centres are attracting outstanding researchers from across the globe, bringing with them expertise from a wide range of backgrounds whilst simultaneously increasing opportunities for new collaborations.
This will bring us closer to finding the key breakthroughs that the brain tumour community so desperately needs. -
Funded InitiativesBuild Infrastructure
Researchers need access to research tools, platforms and resources to deliver their vital research.
Working in partnership with other organisations, our funding is supporting this research infrastructure, connecting and improving coordination across the UK brain tumour research community, and ensuring that researchers can maximise their potential and ambition to deliver world-leading research and innovation.
We currently fund two initiatives focused on providing resources for scientists undertaking research into brain tumours.PRIME in partnership with brainstrust
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Funded InitiativesAccelerate Treatments
We strive to improve the quality of brain tumour research in the UK and support innovative research to generate new treatments for brain tumours.
We fund two initiatives that are focused on researching and supporting the development of new treatments for brain tumours.
Brain Tumour Research Novel Therapeutics Accelerator, in
partnership with TJBCM
The University of Cardiff in partnership with the MRC
Our Centre of Excellence at The Institute of Cancer Research is uniquely positioned to translate scientific breakthroughs into treatments for patients. The team is generating the laboratory data needed to support the launch of new clinical trials.
In the news: Clinical trial to repurpose HIV drugs for brain tumour patients
Scientists at the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at the University of Plymouth are conducting a clinical trial to see whether using anti-retroviral medications, Ritonavir and Lopinavir, could help people with Neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2). The rare inherited genetic condition causes tumours such as schwannoma (which include acoustic neuroma), ependymoma and meningioma which develop on the membrane surrounding the brain.
The RETREAT clinical trial, led by Professor Oliver Hanemann and funded by the Children’s Tumour Foundation, will expand on research which showed the repurposed drugs reduced tumour growth and survival in the tumours.
Frequently asked questions
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Why does Brain Tumour Research invest in the Centre model?
Our mission is to establish a network of flourishing Brain Tumour Research Centres of Excellence, which together will put the UK at the forefront of international brain tumour research.
We are the only national charity dedicated purely to funding scientific research into all types of brain tumours. With our secure long-term funding partnerships covering the key salaried positions within our Centres, researchers are freed from the limitations and frustrations of applying for one specific project grant after another in order to secure career opportunities, and instead can pursue the sustainable and continuous research so desperately needed if we are to achieve our vision of finding a cure for all types of brain tumours.
Promising scientists are trained up through the ranks and fulfil their potential, rather than being tempted into other areas of cancer research which currently attract greater funding and have greater job security. As specialist brain tumour expertise and knowledge builds, these experienced researchers can then potentially move between Centres which encourages cross-pollination of the very best thinking at the cutting-edge of brain tumour research.
With job security and the ability to build outstanding teams of collaborative researchers amongst the academic and medical communities, our Centres of Excellence can develop long-term strategic research plans to explore new avenues, in order to find the key breakthroughs that the brain tumour community so desperately needs, instead of thinking simply of one small project after another.
Each Centre of Excellence is an active partner with Brain Tumour Research. We supply dedicated members of staff with expertise in fundraising, marketing and PR to work at both local and national level alongside existing teams at universities and hospitals attached to these Centres of Excellence. This dedication to the brain tumour cause supports and enhances the identity of each Centre as well as that of Brain Tumour Research, providing a dynamic fundraising atmosphere in order to meet our target of raising £1 million per year per Centre.
Our Centres are part of a new and powerful network, collaborating with each other and other institutes, both within the UK and internationally, in order to accelerate progress in brain tumour research in the UK and make a clinical difference.
We partner with researchers and clinicians who share our vision of a sustainable, secure future for UK brain tumour research. We want better futures for all those diagnosed and living with a brain tumour.