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Cancer Grand Challenges - The nervous system and cancer

Cancer Grand Challenges

This is a new challenge, which we announced in March 2025. It is open for Expressions of Interest, with the successful team(s) being awarded up to £20m ($25m) to tackle it. Submissions are due by 18 June 2025.

Context

Nerves mediate the homeostasis of normal tissues, and this is disrupted in neoplasia where the nervous system promotes cancer pathogenesis, therapeutic resistance, pain syndromes and psychological dysfunction. In response to signals released by tumours, peripheral nerves arborize and bidirectionally communicate with them to promote cancer progression and immune dysfunction. Beyond cancer, evidence suggests that Parkinson's disease may initiate in the gut and impact the brain via the vagus nerve. Despite these insights, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly defined.

This challenge aims to define bidirectional signalling between tumours and the peripheral and central nervous systems that promote cancer progression. These findings will yield new biological mechanisms that could underpin therapeutic intervention and improve patient outcomes.

Vision and impact

Identifying and developing a mechanistic understanding of the bidirectional communication between tumours and the nervous system will ultimately reveal new fundamental insights about cancer progression, that could be developed into novel approaches for the treatment of cancer.

Specialties

Cancer

Oncology

Neurosciences

Eligibility Requirements

The role of nerves in cancer biology remains poorly understood, presenting an opportunity to bridge oncology and neuroscience. Neuronal contributions to cancer may be underestimated due to the difficulty of detecting nerves within tumour tissue. Addressing this challenge will require innovative approaches to investigate nerve-tumour interactions with precision.

This challenge will explore whether nerves actively drive cancer pathogenesis, influence immune recognition or the systemic effects of cancer and therapeutic response. This could include the potential role of nerves as sanctuary sites for neoplastic cells or pathways for metastatic spread. Investigating how nerves mediate these cancer-associated factors could provide crucial mechanistic insights.

Applications are strongly encouraged from teams which bring together expertise in neuroscience with cancer biology and immunology to explore interactions between the nervous system and a broad range of tumours across the body, beyond neural tumours or those confined to the nervous system.

Sponsor Details

Sponsor Institute/Organizations: Cancer Grand Challenges

Sponsor Type: Corporate

Address: 2 Redman Place London, E20 1JQ

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